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adarlingwrites · 3 years ago

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Leave it to the Wind

Summary: Between deadlines, an awful transport system, and aswangs lurking about in the shadows, you have much to worry about as a college student in Manila, and it's so much that your social life is practically dead. Your wind people roommates want to help you remedy that.

Words: 9343

Relationships: The Kambal/Reader (Crispin/Reader/Basilio)

Warnings: Adult content, alcohol, brief scene of sexual harassment

Author’s Notes: God, the fandom is so thirsty for the Kambal, and so am I. Finally, some Filipino himbo representation.

The premise is: Hannah and Amie decides to play matchmaker. Hilarity ensues. Smut ensues. Please be nice, I based the characterizations of the character on the Netflix series and Trese wiki pages since I couldn't get my hands on the original comics yet oof. Some words, like terms of endearment and curse words, will remain in Filipino. Translations are provided. Reader is AFAB and is referred to with female pronouns.

Reposting this from AO3 with all three chapters in one post. A Filipino (Taglish) translation is in the works!

You don’t know how they managed to convince you, to be honest.

You rarely ever go out at night anymore. So many strange incidents transpire in Manila’s narrow streets. Just recently, you’ve heard of a new story about a tikbalang who allegedly participated in illegal street races.

So when your roommates and friends Amie and Hannah invited you for a night out, you hesitated. You gave them every excuse you can think of; you needed to do laundry, you needed to study, you needed to finish a project, and so on.

You know that the two of them are wind people, but you can’t help but think. Which of the various stories you had been hearing are real? What else in this world you haven’t witnessed yet?

“Aw, you’re such a buzzkill! Pretty please? You don’t go out with us as often. Enjoy yourself a little,” Amie whines, lying on the sofa of your living room.

On the other hand, Hannah turns to you with a mischievous grin on her face. “C’mon, get dressed already,” she commanded. “There are some total hotties we’d like you to meet! One of them might catch your eye!”

“I told you, I don’t need a relationship. You two try this every week. How do you even know so many people?” you retort, laughing softly at yourself.

“Well, our night lives are active,” Hannah retorted. “Don’t forget our sex lives!” the other added. Hearing those words, you felt your face get flushed with heat.

You needed a good fuck.

“Damn it, fine! As long as you pay for me.”

They finally got you to say yes.

As the night went on, you went to several bars, and you swore that you had explored every crevice of the city. It doesn’t help that the guy Amie and Hannah were with, a tall, dark and handsome man with flowing locks of black hair, drove like a demon. You got around quickly in no time.

Around an hour after midnight, you’re all exhausted from a night of dancing and mingling. None of the people your friends introduced to you caught your attention. At that point, you just wanted a stiff drink to unwind.

Voicing it to your drinking buddies, they nod in agreement.

“I know just the place, in Malate,” the man you’re with said. “Quiet. Discreet. I can take you there, if you want.”

“You mean The Diabolical, right? Let’s go! Text Crispin and Basilio, they might be hangin’ there too,” Amie croons.

A chuckle escapes your lips upon hearing their names. “Huh? Were they named after the characters in Jose Rizal’s novel?”

“I think so? Whatever! But seriously though… Those two can totally make you scream their names louder than Sisa ever did! Best lay I ever had!”

The remark made you laugh so hard, you swore you can be heard in the next city. “What the fuck! Amie, gaga ka, Sisa was their mom! The context of that scene was rough.”

Hannah’s mischievous grin spreads on her face once more, and she gently elbows your side. “Well, if you’re lucky, in this context you’d be crying their names while your eyes roll to the back of your head.”

You’ll never admit it, but you had hoped all their teasing would come true.

It didn’t take long for the four of you to reach your destination. As you enter The Diabolical, a strange chill envelopes you. The air feels different inside; it’s almost as if you stepped in a different world. Perhaps it’s the alcohol, but when you looked around, you saw a duwende sitting by the bar. Or was it called a nuno? At the end of the bar, you saw them; two men both dressed in black suits. One has short hair, while the other one has longer, reaching past his shoulders. However, they’re facing away from you. Only the back of their head and part of their cheeks were visible where you stood.

You snapped out of it when the man you three are with spoke up. “I’m gonna call it a night. Have fun, you three.”

“For real? Wow Maliksi, this is the first time I ever saw you wanting to leave early. Aren’t you gonna stop by and say hi to Alex?” Hannah asks him.

“Maybe next time,” Maliksi answers back, a somber expression on his face. “Oh em gee, did you two fight? Wait, what are you two?” Amie asks.

“Whatever. It’s complicated. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Your friends nodded and let Maliksi be. He waves at your group, and heads out the door. The engine of his car roars to life, and his car screeches away.

As the car moved farther away though, it seems that the screeching of the tires turned into hoofbeats.

Perhaps it’s just your imagination.

“Amie! Hannah! Have a drink! Hey, who’s that with you? Is that the person you’ve been wanting us to meet for ages now?”

Your head turns to where the voice was coming from; one of the men in the suits, the one with short hair in particular. You finally had a good look on their faces.

Twins?

“Crispin! Meet our friend! This is…”

As Amie and Hannah introduce you to the Twins, you can’t help but stare. You took the sight of their features in; they’re tall, with broad shoulders, and hard muscle underneath that black suit and white tie ensemble. They have wide noses with a high bridge, prominent bone structure, and a prominent widow’s peak.

Merciful Bathala, they’re gorgeous.

What caught your attention the most are their eyes. They're pitch black, save for the small reflection of light.

Are these people even human?

“Stare at them like that any longer and they might melt,” Amie teases. The two of your friends are giving you an ear-splitting grin due to your reaction to the Twins.

“I, uh-” you stuttered, and you could feel the heat rising in your cheeks.

“Hey, don’t be shy. You can sit between us, miss. We’re all friends here,” the twin with the longer hair says. If the other one is Crispin, then this must be Basilio.

Behind you, your friends are already giggling. They took their places next to the twins and leaned on their biceps. Across from you, the bartender comes to take your order.

“What’ll it be, kid?” he asks.

For some reason, you’re panicking. Maybe it’s because of the alcohol in your system. Or maybe it’s because you’re sandwiched between the twins. “Uh, what would you recommend, manong?”

Laughter erupted from the twins. “Hank, she called you manong!” Basilio teases while grinning like a fucking dog. “Geez, are you really that old?” Crispin eggs him on, giving him a shit-eating grin. Hank takes a wet rag he uses to wipe down the countertop and strikes the two down. “You goddamn assholes!”

You couldn’t stop yourself from laughing with them.

“Ow! Alright, we’re sorry, we’re sorry. Get them the best seller, Hank. We’ll pay for their tab,” Basilio says, and Hannah and Amie squeals with joy.

“Oh em gee, you boys are so sweet! Thank youuu!”

As Hank prepares you a drink, you try conversing with the twins. “You two seem fun to have as drinking buddies.”

Hank turns around to reach a bottle from the shelf. “Those two are mischievous little shits, that’s for sure. You know, when these two were kids...”

“Hey man, don’t embarrass us like that in front of our new friend,” Crispin whines.

While the three continues fucking around, you leaned back slightly to glimpse at Amie, who was trying to get your attention for a while now. She points to her phone, and you fetch yours from your bag.

You read your group chat with them. “Soooo, do you like, like them?” Hannah’s message said.

“You’re into them aren’t you? You got so shy around them, it’s so cute!” Amie’s message said.

“Right? It’s rare to see you so flustered!”

You typed away furiously at your phone, cautious to not let the twins beside you see the conversation.

“Well, they’re an improvement from the ones you introduced me to earlier. Easier on the eyes, too…”

Your friends giggled, and as their drinks arrived, they stood up. “Girl, we’re gonna leave you with them, there’s some super hot tikbalangs who just came in the bar. Byeeee!”

“Hey, wait!”

They didn’t heed your words and went to sit on the tikbalangs’ laps.

Fuck, tikbalangs are real? Is Maliksi a tikbalang too?

“And off they go, flirting with those beasts after they’ve used us for drinks,” Crispin laments, voice dripping with light-hearted sarcasm.

“It’s not like it’s the first time we got used by them though,” Basilio adds, cringing.

You can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

Basilio’s head whips towards you, sweat gathering on his brow. “Seriously?! Shit, what did they say about us?”

“All good things, don’t you worry,” you answered.

“Nah, I need to hear what they said word for word,” the twin with long hair responds. “This is making me paranoid!”

Crispin moves closer to you, Basilio puts a friendly arm around your shoulder, and you can only smile. All of you are inebriated and if you were sober, and if someone else dared to get this close to you, you might’ve slapped them. But you feel good about the Twins, and your roommates never put you in harm’s way, so your trust for them extended to the brothers, somehow.

“Just tell us already,” Crispin slurs. “Tell us what they said about us. We’re curious.”

“Fine, fine. Okay, Amie and Hannah mentioned your names when Maliksi suggested that we head here to drink. Then, I mentioned that your names came from Rizal’s novels.”

“Then Amie said,” you continued, pausing briefly to come up with an impression of your roommate’s speech. “‘Seriously though… Those two can totally make you scream their names louder than Sisa ever did! Best lay I ever had!’ Fuck, it was so messed up!”

“That’s messed up, alright,” Basilio sputters, his face a deep shade of crimson. “I’m this hot and those are the only details they can spare?!”

“Ok, but that Sisa joke was kind of funny though. But it was still fucked up,” Crispin adds, and he takes a sip of his drink.

“Hold your horses, the story’s not done yet,” you say. You’re starting to feel more confident around the two.

Your conversation went places, until you found yourselves drinking until three in the morning, and at that point, it’s only just the four of you in the bar; Hank, the Twins, and you. Even Hannah and Amie are nowhere to be seen. Knowing them, they probably took the tikbalangs they were flirting with back to your apartment.

They didn’t even wait for you. Looks like they’re really setting you up tonight. Maybe they wanted the apartment to themselves tonight, and they got exactly what they wanted.

You had planned on getting up to go to the restroom, but when you tried standing up, you almost fell from the chair. The Twins caught you before you landed face first against the floor.

“She’s had enough to drink,” Hank comments. They set you on a chair with a backrest. “How will she get home? We can’t send her off in a cab at this rate. The train doesn't run this late either.”

“Hannah left her behind too,” Crispin adds.

“Hey, how are we gonna deal with this?” Basilio asks. “We can get you home once we sober up a little. It’s fine if you-”

Basilio never got to finish what he was going to say, because you nodded off against his stomach, and puked your lunch out.

You don’t remember anything after that.

When you awaken, the sun is already high up, and the first thing that greets you is the fan in the ceiling. Your muscles are screaming at you, and your throat feels dry. Memories of last night came crashing back and you started sweating in horror. Maybe it’s just a drunken dream, but it felt all too real.

You were flirting with these gorgeous twins, had too much to drink, and at some point puked all over one of the twins’ shoes.

And now, you don’t know whose bedroom you are in. You check yourself, and you’re still wearing the same clothes, with nothing out of place. There are no bruises or marks on your body either. You looked around you, but there was no one else in the room.

The doors crack open slightly, and you see two pairs of void-black eyes.

“I… um… good morning?”

“It’s… already 2 in the afternoon,” one of them says. He has long hair. This one is the twin you threw up on.

“Why don’t you have some lunch?” the other one said.

You just nodded and said nothing else, ashamed of yourself. You threw up on one of them and now you’re eating at their table. You just wanted the ground to swallow you alive.

“Sorry for puking on you last night,” you near-whispered to Basilio after you swallowed your first bite of food.

The silence broke when Crispin roared with laughter, tears pooling at the corner of his eyes. Meanwhile, Basilio was glaring daggers at his brother. He’s frowning like a child whose toy got taken from him. “Sure, keep laughing, kuya.”

“I’ll never show my face here again, I promise,” you say to them, hiding your face behind your hands.

“What’re you talking about? Forget about it. We’re friends now, right?” Basilio tells you, smiling. “But next time, vomit on my brother too.”

“No one’s throwing up because I won’t be allowing any of you to get wasted that bad ever again,” Hank announces as he enters the room with a carafe in his hand. “Bossing’s not gonna like it if the bar ends up smelling as bad as Basilio’s room. Here, have some coffee.”

“We should introduce you to bossing next time too. She’s not here at the moment,” Crispin adds. “Let’s do this again next week.”

The invitation made you smile, and you poured yourself a cup of coffee. You continued eating the rest of your meal.

“...my room doesn’t smell that, right?” Basilio asks after a few moments of silence.

“Gago, it stinks so bad. It’s why we made the guest stay at my room, because if she stayed at yours she could’ve died from how bad it is,” Crispin exclaims. “Seriously, how can you live with bringing women to your room at that point?”

“Kuya, you’re embarrassing me to our guest!”

Translations for non-Filipino speaking folks:

bossing: a somewhat affectionate way to say “boss”. Comes from the old tradition of adding -eng or -ing to ones name to make a nickname, e.g. Luciana - Lucing

Gago/gaga (ka): (you) idiot/moron - someone stupid, foolish or ignorant

Tikbalang: creature from Filipino mythology similar to a centaur. They are hulking beasts with a horse's head.

manong: a term for endearment to an elderly male relative, or elderly men in general. Originally an Ilokano term referring to the first born son in a nuclear family.

kuya: big brother. Can be used to refer to one's own older brother, someone else's older brother, or an older peer or male acquaintance.

Author’s Notes: This chapter was heavily inspired by Bita and the Botflies' song Manghuhula.

Warnings: brief scene of sexual harrassment

After washing up, the Twins accompanied you to the gate, exchanging glances at each other behind your back. Little did they know, you definitely noticed it.

“Wait,” Basilio says, tapping your shoulder lightly with a large hand.

Crispin takes his phone out of his pocket. His younger brother proceeds to do the same. “Give us your phone. We’ll add our numbers, and you can text us if something happens,” he says.

“Or when you get home safe,” Basilio adds.

You look at the two of them back and forth. “This isn’t just an elaborate excuse for the two of you to get my number, right?”

Neither of the two spoke, giving each other a nervous glance.

Their reaction made you laugh out loud, and you took out your phone from your bag. “Here. I’ll give you my Facespace too.”

With the tension broken, the three of you exchange a chuckle. You punch in your number in their phones, while they did the same to yours. Crispin looks over his brother’s shoulder and frowns.

“Epal,” Crispin says to his brother, snatching your phone away from him. The older twin types something in, and it’s the younger one’s turn to stick his nose in. Basilio attempts to get the phone back, cursing all the time.

“You’re going to break her phone, gago,” the older twin curses, pushing a palm against Basilio’s face. “Then let it go! You’re the epal, I wasn’t done yet,” the younger one snaps back.

You give them a look of irritation, and check out what they’re arguing about.

“What the hell are you two grown-ass men fighting about?” you ask as you butt in to look at what they’re doing.

A loud snort bubbles from you as you see it; Basilio added “the hot twin” next to his contact name. Crispin added “the hotter twin”. Now, the former wanted to outdo his older brother.

Against your better judgment, you say, “You’re twins. You look like each other. You’re both hot. Now stop fighting over my phone.”

Perhaps it’s the afternoon heat, but there is a tinge of red in their cheeks after your remark. You waved them goodbye as you got in a tricycle that’ll get you to the nearest train station.

The MRT, in some strange miraculous twist of fate, isn’t as packed as usual. It’s still populated, but there were a few seats waiting to be taken. You sit down somewhere away from direct sunlight, and you take out your phone to tell Hannah and Amie that you’re on the way home.

The first thing you see is a text from Basilio. Then, a text from Crispin. You tell them both that you’re on the train now, completely forgetting about messaging your roommates. To pass the time, you launch the Facespace app and decide to look up their profiles, only to find out that they’ve already sent you a friend request.

Upon seeing Crispin’s profile, you did your damn best to stifle a laugh.

His work description says “works at the Krusty Krab,” but that wasn’t the craziest thing about his profile. At first, the Bible verse in his bio caught you off guard, thinking that someone like him didn’t seem religious, but when you quickly looked up “Ezekiel 23:20,” you did your best not to howl with laughter.

Basilio’s isn’t any better.

In his work description, he put “Model at For Her Magazine,” and “edi sa puso mo.” Then you scroll down to see a thirst trap of him pulling his shirt up with his teeth, and you can feel the heat rising to your cheeks again. Well, at least that work description is believable.

They’re- what was that term your younger university friends were using again?- himbos.

They’re definitely himbos.

Arriving at your place, you slot your key inside the doorknob and twist. As you enter the door, the heavy, musky scent of sex and sweat hits your face, and you regret getting too wasted last night and losing your chance to hook up with one of the Twins.

Or both.

Both?

Regardless, at least they’ve invited you again to hang out next week.

You raise your eyebrow and cross your arms at the scene before you. Cans of beer litter the living room, and your roommates are taking a nap by the couch. A tikbalang comes out of the bathroom, glamor off, and you snort as you watch him duck under the door frame because of his massive height.

“It’s already four in the afternoon. Time to go, big guy.”

He nods awkwardly in acknowledgment, morphing into his human disguise, and exiting your apartment.

You sit between your roommates, rousing them from their sleep. “I’m not going to clean this mess up,” you tell them, motioning to the trashed state of the living room, and reaching for the remote to turn the TV on. You just want to take a shower afterwards and sleep in your own bed tonight.

After rubbing the sleep from their eyes, your roommates near-tackles you on the couch, a curious, excited look on their faces. You forgot all about what you were watching and stared at them in surprise.

“So how did it go? Did you get to hook up with any of them?” Amie asks.

“Or both of them?” Hannah adds.

“Gaga, nothing like that happened.”

The two of them let you go with disappointed looks on their faces. “So sayang! Here we were thinking you finally have a sex life,” one of them says as you lean back on the backrest, closing your eyes as they continue to pester you for details.

“Why are you two so determined to get me to screw someone?” you finally snapped, amused and irked at the same time.

“Because you’ve been doing nothing but totally stressing yourself out! See how super fun it is to let go every now and then?”

“Thanks for the new drinking buddies, girls, but I have my fingers to keep me company. Hookups are too much work,” you lie to them, eyes still closed.

“That’s a toe-curling, full-body orgasm you’re missing out on, girl!”

“That’s assuming that the person I’m with knows what they’re doing,” you retorted.

One of them pokes your side with an elbow, and you assume it’s Hannah. “The Twins do.”

You opened your eyes, and you guessed right; it’s Hannah. You give her a look, before rolling your eyes, appearing to look disinterested. The smirk tugging at the edge of your lips says otherwise, though.

“So what happened last night?” Amie asks.

“I got wasted and threw up on Basilio’s shoes. Then, I ended up sleeping in Crispin’s room. When I woke up, they fed me and sent me home,” you tell them. Your roommates giggle at the story.

“Ah, speaking of which, I gotta let them know I got home,” you said off-hand, and somehow the remark only spurred your wind people roommates on.

“Yieee, you’re friends with them on Facespace already!” Amie quips, leaning in to see what you’re typing. Playfully, you move your phone away from her to conceal what you’re typing.

“Make a group chat with them!” Hannah exclaims, taking your phone away from you. You tried taking it back, but Amie joins in the mischief and blocks you from doing so.

When you got your phone back, the deed was done, and the chat was renamed to a single eggplant emoji. The like button was replaced by an eggplant emoji too.

Panicking, you add your roommates to the group to avoid looking suspicious, and swiftly type up a defense.

“Please ignore that, Hannah made this chat using my account.”

The teasing never stopped after that.

Weeks passed and you never bothered to change it, though.

It’s been about two months since your first encounter with the Twins. You’re becoming a familiar face at The Diabolical, going every Saturday to see them. Sometimes Hannah and Amie didn’t accompany you anymore. You’ve met the Twins’ bossing a few times, who turned out to be none other than Alexandra Trese. You’ve heard of her exploits and the two imposing bodyguards who were almost always with her. It surprised you that they’re none other than the Twins you knew, but it made perfect sense. Those two were jacked, and those muscles aren’t only for show.

Of course, because of your increasing presence in the bar, it didn’t take long for the rumors to circulate. Word on the street is both of the Twins had a thing for you, and neither is making a move out of consideration for the other. They are waiting for you to move.

You elected to ignore them, perfectly happy with your arrangement of having two handsome men to keep you company while you unwind. The thought of getting together with one of them, or even both of them did cross your mind a few times, however.

Ultimately, you wouldn’t know what to do if the day comes that you’ll have to confront how you feel and choose between the two.

Do you have to?

Crispin and Basilio are twins, but they’re distinct from each other. The older is more serious, with a dryer sense of humor, while the younger is goofier, and somewhat softer. One complements the other, and they’re both good company despite their differences.

Speak of the devil. Your phone buzzes and you see that the eggplant chat is active. The Twins are inviting you to The Diabolical again.

“See you guys at eight,” you type in. Someone reacts with an eggplant to your message. Then the next few messages were nothing but eggplant emojis, followed by Basilio sending “#TeamTalong”. Crispin cusses him out for it, but sends the same message right after.

Yeah, that became a thing among the five of you.

You and the wind girls got dressed and took a taxi to the bar, your favorite jacket draped over your shoulders. Pressured by your roommates, you wore something nicer tonight; a black faux leather dress that hugs your figure deliciously. The shiny fabric added to the effect. The six bottles of Pulang Tikbalang beer the three of you shared before going out might’ve contributed to your newfound bravado.

But now that you’re actually wearing it outside your apartment, you feel a little reluctant.

“Maybe wearing this is a bad idea,” you mutter to no one in particular, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear out of self-consciousness.

Amie taps you from behind. “Oh hush, that outfit is totally sexy,” she comments. “Finally ready to get dicked down tonight, girl?”

“Shhh, gaga ka, manong driver can hear you.”

That didn’t deter them from making more inappropriate comments, much to the manong's ire.

It’s nine already when you get there, you’re in the Philippines after all. The merriment is already in full swing when you step through the door. Hannah and Amie went ahead and sat next to their lay of the week. The Twins wave you over from their usual spot, but before you can reach them, a man you’ve never seen before tries to get your attention, snaking an arm around your waist.

“Hey baby. You’re a regular here, right? Want to drink with me?”

“Sorry, I’m here with someone else,” you tell him, moving away.

“Ah, here to see the Twins? Why don’t you ditch them for a change of pace and come with me, babe?”

“Not interested,” you flat out said. “Please move, or I’ll make you move.”

To your surprise, the man drops his glamor and reveals himself to be a kapre. He looms over you, cigar in his mouth, and you can feel the tension rising. People are starting to stare, and your friends took notice of it too.

“Try,” he huffs, puffing smoke to your face. You give him a sour glare while trying not to cough.

Before your roommates or the Twins could come to your aid, you panicked and saw an empty bottle of Pulang Tikbalang on a nearby table. Emboldened by the alcohol in your veins, you shatter the bottle and point the jagged edge at the hulking beast, hands shaking. You are a tiny thing compared to the enormous creature before you, after all.

“Don’t you dare look down on me.”

“Already doing that, honey.”

“I’m not your honey,” you say as you press the edge against his stomach, not enough to draw blood, but hard enough to hurt.

“I love it when they fight back,” the kapre croons.

Under the haze of alcohol, you were more than ready to shove the edge in, consequences be damned.

Before things could escalate, Crispin takes the broken bottle off of your hands and steers you away from the stranger, while Basilio steps in to defuse the tension. “Hey, why don’t you back off, pal? Our friend said no. You wouldn’t want us to tell our bossing to ban you from the place because of this misunderstanding now, don’t you?”

Heart in your throat, you turn to the Twins, then to the kapre. The tree giant pauses, looking at the three of you, then smirks.

“Heh. Fine. But if you torpe whelps don’t make a move, I will.”

The giant puts his glamor back on and skulks away.

“Wow, what a jerk! He only left you alone when the boys stepped in,” Hannah quips, tossing her hair in indignation.

“You almost didn’t need rescuing, but I’d hate to help Hank mop the blood off the floor later,” Basilio comments, nudging you gently with an elbow. His eyes go a little lower from your face, and you see him look away.

You realized Crispin hasn’t let go of you yet.

“C’mon, let’s just go,” you tell everyone. Crispin proceeds to remove his hand away from your shoulder, and you take your usual seats by the bar.

The bar is loud, but the silence between the three of you is deafening. Even Hank seems to have taken notice, eyeing your usually loud and cheerful group.

“What’s up with you three? What happened back there?” the older man asks, leaning over the bar top.

“Just a handsy kapre who couldn’t take no for an answer. I won’t let it spoil the night,” you answer him.

“That’s the spirit. Holler if he tries something like that again, I’ll have him kicked out,” Hank replies, setting down three ice-cold beers in front of you guys.

Yet somehow, the conversation never livened up.

Three bottles of Pulang Tikbalang later, you’ve had enough.

“This is about what that kapre said, isn’t it?” you finally say, slightly pissed.

The Twins look at each other with guilty expressions, and simultaneously nod.

“Do you boys wanna talk about it?”

They look at each other again. “Shit, this is awkward,” Crispin comments, scratching his head. Basilio nods in agreement, uncharacteristically silent. “We didn’t want to pressure you into anything you didn’t want to do,” the older twin continues.

“Look, I don’t want to ruin my relationship with my kuya just because we’re interested in the same girl,” Basilio says. “Same here,” Crispin adds.

“So we were waiting for you to make your own move,” Basilio continues.

“Ah. So the rumors are true,” you sighed.

“We’ll accept whatever outcome there is. If you choose me, or Basilio, or neither because this is fucking messy, we totally get it,” the older twin says, leaning back to stare at the ceiling.

Now the decision rests in your hands.

“Why don’t we talk about this somewhere more private?” you ask them.

You watch as both of them gulp. “Where do you wanna talk?” Basilio asks.

“Anywhere private.”

“I just cleaned my room earlier. Why don’t we continue this there?”

You nod, and they lead you away from the bar.

Looks like it’s going to be a long night.

Translations for non-Filipino speakers:

epal: in Filipino slang, usually refers to a person who inappropriately presents himself in a situation or butts into a conversation.

kapre: a tree-giant from Filipino mythology. Often described as very tall, dark, and hairy. Almost never seen without a cigar.

sayang: literally means waste. Can be used alone as an expression similar to "what a waste!"

torpe: someone who cannot spit their romantic or sexual feelings out to a crush or love interest

III

Author’s Notes:

Warnings: Smut. Filthy smut. Writer-is-definitely-going-to-the-second-circle-of-the-Seven-Circles-of-Hell-levels-of-filthy smut. Bawal bata, tulog na. If you're under 18 please turn back.

After the door closes behind the three of you, you sit on the bed, while Crispin sits on a chair near his brother’s desk. Basilio locks the door, and leans against it, unable to look at you.

“Right. So. How are we going to deal with this?” you ask them, crossing your legs.

“Don’t ask us,” Crispin says, swiveling the chair to face you. “You’re the one caught in the middle after all.”

Curse his choice of words.

“This is too weird,” Basilio speaks up. “If you want me to unlock the door, just say the word. We can walk out of this like nothing happened.”

“And then what? Things are going to be awkward between the three of us, I just know it,” you say to him, palming the back of your neck. “Things might get awkward with Amie and Hannah too, and I live with them. I don’t want our tropa to disband just because of relationship drama.”

“What about Amie and Hannah? Is it because we have history with those two?” Crispin asks.

“They’ve been trying to set me up with either of you. The fact that they also slept with you in the past also doesn’t help. Shit, this is messy.”

“Er, um,” Basilio stutters. “That might’ve been our fault.”

You furrow your brow and cross your arms. “Keep going.”

The Twins look at each other, as if gauging who should explain the situation. “So, we remained in contact after being used as a prize for bossing’s race with Maliksi, right?” Crispin starts.

“Uh huh.”

“Well, they mentioned a third roommate in passing and joked about lending us to her. Of course we blew them off, then Amie showed us a picture of you. We got curious and asked them to introduce you,” Basilio continues.

“I didn’t expect us five to become friends. And now we’re in this mess,” Crispin adds.

You look at them back and forth, and laugh in resignation. Elbows digging against your lap and palms pressed against your face, you rub your face and run it through your hair. “Amazing. Just amazing. See, I have a problem too.”

The Twins didn’t respond, eyes fixated on you.

“I like the two of you.”

You feel the air shift around you. Basilio’s standing upright by the door now, and Crispin straightened up too. The room is so quiet, you can hear them gulp in anticipation for what will happen next.

“There. I said it. The reason why I haven’t made a move at all is because of this exact moment that I was dreading. I didn’t want to choose,” you admit, feeling the blood rush to your head. “I just wanted for us three to stay like that, drinking buddies sprinkled with sexual tension.”

“And you’re in the middle, enjoying our attention,” Crispin says, crossing his arms.

“Selfish, I know,” you admit, head hanging low.

This is it, the moment that can make or break you three.

“Us three. If only...” you whisper, only for the words to fall flat on your tongue

You stand up, gathering your things and carrying your bag. “Nevermind. What a mess we’re in. I’ll go so you two can sort things out between the two of you. It’s been a fun ride.”

Basilio doesn’t move from the door, and behind you, you can hear Crispin getting up from his seat.

“We can still make this work, right kuya?” Basilio starts, looking over your head to give his brother a knowing look.

“Yeah, I think so,” Crispin replies. “What was that you said? The three of us?”

Your eyes widen, and you look at them back and forth. Their bodies are dangerously close to yours. Now you’re literally caught in the middle.

“I- uh…”

“I think we can work out an arrangement,” Basilio whispers, one hand moving to hold yours.

“Only if you want to,” Crispin adds, his breath kissing the back of your neck.

“I don’t want to lose either of you,” Basilio adds.

“Same here.”

Damn it all.

Giving in to your darkest, most hidden desires, you lean in to capture Basilio’s lips with yours, leaving his black eyes wide open in surprise. They flutter close, and he savors the kiss, slipping a tongue in. Then you turn to Crispin, and you give him the same sweet kiss as well.

“Damn, I didn’t mean like, now,” Basilio mutters, feeling the front of his trousers get tighter as he watches you make out with his brother.

Bringing your attention back to the younger twin, you loosen his tie, while you push out your ass to grind against Crispin. “Are you complaining?”

“Not at all.”

“Wait, are you sure about this? All of us drank tonight… we don’t want you to do something you’ll regret,” Crispin says, moving his hips away from you. Basilio pauses too, and wraps his hands around your wrists to still your hands, a look of concern on his face.

“Kuya’s right.”

“I’m a grown woman. I might’ve had a few bottles, but I know what I want,” you reassure them, waiting for the two to make a move. “I know I want you two for months.”

Basilio lets go of your hands and lets you do as you please, a cocky smirk on his lips. Behind you, you can feel Crispin’s gloved hands reaching for the zipper of your dress. “Really? How much do you want us? C’mon, say it,” Basilio asks, moving in to place kisses on your neck.

“I wanna hear it too,” Crispin whispers against your shoulder, and he punctuates it with a light kiss.

All of a sudden, you felt shy at the prospect of confessing your fantasies out loud. “Why don’t I just show you boys?”

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this one,” Basilio teases. “Consider it as payback for throwing up all over my shoes.”

“You’re still- ah!- mad about that?” you ask him, gasping in the middle of doing so when you felt a hand snake between your legs from behind. The older twin slips his fingers past your underwear, circling your clit with slow strokes.

“Not mad, I just want things to be fair,” Basilio teases, pulling your dress down. He gives your breasts a squeeze, fondling and rolling your nipples until they harden, and he seals his lips over your right one. Crispin moves from behind you and he takes his place next to his twin, lathing his tongue over the left. All four of their hands pawed at your flesh greedily.

You were at a loss for words because of how good they’re making you feel, soft moans bubbling from your throat.

“Speechless already, huh?” Crispin mumbles against your skin.

“Ngh! The wind girls weren’t lying, you two know what you’re doing,” you gasped, face flushed as you watched the Twins lavish their attention on your breasts.

“Shhh, stop changing the subject. Play along, or neither of us will make you cum,” he adds, pausing to give you a teasing lick, and resting his tongue on top of the hardened bud. On the other hand, Basilio is sucking like a starved babe while squeezing your still clothed behind.

You fake a scoff of indignation and grin. “Fine. I- oh fuck- want you two so much, I’ve been fantasizing for weeks.”

Basilio pauses to address you. “Describe them.”

You’re a little mortified, but the alcohol in your system pushes you to be bolder. “I imagined Basilio punishing me for ruining his shoes.”

“And how did he do that?” Crispin’s voice.

“He asked me to suck him off,” you start, and a pinch on your bottom from the subject of your fantasy tells you that he wanted to hear more details. “He fucked my face while pulling my hair and told me how good I was the whole time and that he forgave me.”

“What about me? What fantasies did you have?” Crispin asks again.

Your breath hitched in your throat but you pushed on. “Hearing how you scolded Basilio, I imagined you taking me from behind and saying the meanest, dirtiest things possible.”

The Twins looked at each other, and stopped, their lips leaving your breasts with a lewd pop. “You want to make them all come true?” Basilio asks.

Cheeks burning, you give them a curt nod.

The two of them lead you to the bed, where Crispin puts you on all fours, and he takes his place from behind. On the other hand, Basilio is standing near the edge of the bed, the bulge in his pants inches away from your face. You stare at it, licking your lips.

As you undid Basilio’s pants, he shrugs off his suit jacket and takes off his tie, then he takes off his dress shirt, revealing his abs and the trail of dark hair on his lower abdomen, disappearing into his briefs. From behind, you hear fabric shifting, then Crispin peels your panties off of you. He brings a gloved hand against your skin in a loud smack, making you cry out.

“Ah, wait, we need a safeword,” Crispin mentions, soothingly squeezing your skin.

“What about Eternos?” Basilio suggests, and Crispin cocks an eyebrow. “Wait, you mean, like the game?”

You stifle a laugh. “I’m fine with it,” you say to them, and they take it as a signal to continue.

The older twin dips a gloved finger between your folds, gathering your wetness, and tsked. “Look at you, already so fucking wet. You want this so much, huh?”

You nod frantically, then Basilio stills your head. “Open your mouth, baby. Tongue out.”

You oblige, and Basilio fishes his cock out of his briefs. Your eyes grow wider as you take in the sight of it; girthy, with a nice length, and a few veins running on the underside. You wonder if Crispin’s is the same. The twin in front of you lightly smacks his member against your tongue, and you proceed to lick it, running from the base to the tip, slicking it with saliva. You swirl your tongue around it, then try to slide it in your mouth as smoothly as possible.

As Basilio begins to breathe harder with each bob of your head, Crispin pulls your ass towards his face, and a choked moan escapes your lips as you feel his mouth on your heat, toying with your folds before he finally finds that sensitive nub. The older twin proceeds to lick and suck at it, eating you out like you’re the best damn meal of his life.

Meanwhile, you push a palm against Basilio’s thigh to make him pause, and before he can ask you if you’re fine, you take his balls in your mouth and fondle him with your tongue. Your hand pumps his neglected cock as you did so.

“Shit! Your mouth feels so damn good,” he hisses, breathing hard. When you take his dick back into your mouth, Basilio gathers your hair and uses it as a handle, watching his length disappear in your mouth over and over, his black eyes hazy with lust and his mouth whispering words of praise.

Crispin looks at his brother with a hint of envy, cock painfully hard against his trousers. He unzips it for relief, and proceeds to stroke himself as he continues to prepare you.

“Hey, Basilio, got any lube?”

“Um, there’s- ungh- a bottle of it under the pillow.”

“...you keep lube under your pillow? What the- and condoms? Can’t you put them in your drawers or something?”

Basilio doesn’t give his brother a response and focuses his attention on you. You gasp against his cock as you felt a cold, gloved hand prod against your asshole, and goosebumps formed on your flesh as you felt the cold lubricant smearing against your entrance. Crispin pushes his lubed thumb in, and you cry out in pleasure, your jaw opening wider for Basilio to claim. Then, two more fingers prod at your pussy, and you swear you can see stars as they slid in. The older twin toys with you while eating you out, and you feel a knot forming at the base of your stomach, threatening to uncoil at any moment.

You couldn’t take it. Basilio’s cock slides out of your mouth and you look over your shoulder, moaning and panting.

Crispin pauses from eating you out to ask you a question. “You’re gonna cum? You wanna cum on my fingers like the filthy slut you are?”

“Yes, please, please, let me cum,” you begged, and with a devilish smirk, Crispin dives right back in to finish the job.

You squeezed your eyes shut as the pleasure inside you exploded, shameless moans coming from your throat as your first orgasm hits you. Basilio watches the look of pleasure on your face as Crispin makes you cum, making his cock twitch.

“Now that’s how you please a woman,” Crispin teases, shooting his brother a challenging look while wiping your juices off of his face.

“Wait until it’s my turn,” Basilio replies, smirking.

Panting, legs wobbling, you didn’t get to rest as Crispin takes his cock and slides it in you. In front of you, Basilio cups your face and directs you back to his cock, smirking. “You’re doing so well, baby. You’re taking us like a champ, you know that?”

“Fuck,” Crispin hisses from behind you. “You like this, you little slut? You like being fucked by two cocks at the same time?” he asks you, each word punctuated with a hard thrust.

Now you’re really caught in the middle.

Basilio’s panting heavily now, his thrusts becoming erratic against your mouth. You know he’s close, and you brace yourself for what’s coming. Eyes screwed shut, he lets out a low groan as he spills inside of your mouth, his cum painting your tongue white. You try to swallow it all, but a few stray drops dribble down your chin. The younger twin cleans you up, and kisses you deeply, not minding his taste on your mouth. He sits on the bed to catch his breath, and allows you to rest on his thighs.

Behind you, Crispin begins to rut faster, his thumb still in your ass as he pounded you. You writhe and cry against Basilio’s lap, bracing yourself from each harsh thrust. The younger twin pets your hair, but he moves his hand away when Crispin pushes your head against his brother’s lap.

“Take it all of it,” Crispin groans. “Ungh, you make me so horny, you little slut.”

Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Basilio gets an idea.

“Hey, kuya. Hold her up.”

Crispin blinks before obliging his brother’s request, clamping a hand around your throat. “Is this fine?” he asks you, and you nod a few times. He tightens his hold and pulls you to his toned chest, your hair sticking to his skin from your sweat. Basilio kisses you, then latches on one of your breasts. One gloved hand fondles and pulls at your nipples, while the other moves south to stroke you.

“Ah! I think I’m gonna cum again…” you choked, face red and tears forming at the edge of your eyes.

“Say our names,” Crispin whispers against your ear in a low growl.

You mutter their names at first, but it turns to full blown cries as your climax fast approaches.

“Crispin! Basilio!”

It hits you so hard, your eyes roll to the back of your head. You cried shamelessly, and Crispin places a kiss on your open mouth, tongue slipping in and teeth clashing with yours. He pulls out and finishes on your back, cock resting between the valley of your cheeks, still half-hard.

The Twins move to clean you up, looking around for tissues and anything to wipe you with.

“So,” Basilio says. “One more round?”

Your eyes widen, and you look down to see that Basilio is hard again.

“How- what the fuck? What are you two?”

Crispin sighs. “Hannah and Amie never told you? We’re demigods.”

“We don’t get sick and our injuries heal really fast. Talagbusao is our dad,” Basilio adds, and you give him a disbelieving glare.

“You didn’t need to let that last detail slip out, gago,” Crispin berates him as he pulls you close to his muscular chest. He lay down on a pillow, one arm propping his head up.

After a few seconds of silence, you say something. “At least let me have some water first.”

“Right.”

The Twins stare at each other.

“One of us has to fetch it,” Crispin says.

“What? Why me?” Basilio complains, scratching his head.

“Because I’m older, and I’ve worked hard to give her two orgasms in a row.”

“Hey! I’m sure that last one was thanks to me.”

You groan, grabbing a pillow to cover your face. “Ugh, please don’t turn this into a competition about who made me cum the most. Just get me my water, pretty please, Basilio?”

At the request, Basilio smiles and dresses haphazardly to get it for you. “Don’t start without me.”

You close your eyes with a smile. Crispin buries his face against your hair and plays with it. “You have him wrapped around your finger, you know?”

You chuckle at the remark, and Crispin kisses your temple. “Just don’t hurt my little brother.”

“I have no intention of hurting either of you,” you tell him.

Basilio comes back with a pitcher and some glasses, and once everyone’s hydrated and ready, the night continues.

The Twins spoil you with their attention, hands roaming your body as they planted kisses on your skin. Basilio sucks on your collarbone, biting experimentally and leaving marks that would darken in the morning, which draws a whine from your throat. Not wanting to be outdone, Crispin kisses your back, then the back of your neck, and he found a sweet spot that made you moan at that place where your ear connects to your neck. Basilio observes this and does the same to the other side.

“Hey, um, can I do it in your ass?” Crispin whispers in your ear, almost sheepishly, and you stare at him for a few seconds before nodding.

“Sure. Be gentle. And use a condom.”

“Of course. You go on top. What’s our safeword again?” he asks you, testing your knowledge.

You roll your eyes and try not to laugh. “Eternos.”

“Good girl,” Basilio says.

Flipping yourself around, you lean into Crispin’s lap. “Here, let me help,” you say as you grasp his cock and start to pump. The younger twin behind you reaches for the lube and prepares your ass. You sigh with pleasure as you feel the cold sensation of the product on your skin. Crispin sighs as you slide his length between your lips, head bobbing up and down, and you feel him grow inside your mouth. You give the tip a small lick before doing the same thing you did to Basilio, cupping his balls with your mouth and fondling them with your tongue.

“I want you now,” Crispin rasps, tugging your hair to get you off of him.

You smirk, turning around to give him a great view of your ass. He reaches around for a condom, finds one, and tears the foil open. After sliding the rubber down his shaft, he positions himself against your hole, pressing against the tight ring of muscle. You wince in pain as he starts penetrating you, prompting him to squeeze more lube to relieve your discomfort.

“Relax,” Basilio instructs you, planting soothing kisses at your jaw. You did as he said and unclenched your muscles, entrusting yourself to the two of them.

As Crispin pushes past the ring of muscle, you sigh in relief, discomfort replaced with the feeling of fullness. You lean back into his hard chest, a soft sigh leaving your lips as he starts to move. Meanwhile, Basilio kneels between your legs, rubbing your clit with the head of his dripping cock, but he freezes before he slides it in.

“What?” you ask with concern.

“We’re out of condoms.”

“Just pull out,” you tell him with a strained voice, gasping as Crispin moves inside you.

“No, you don’t understand. We’re demigods. Our… um.. Yeah, we’re really potent.”

You smirk at him. “I’ll ask the girls for something in the morning,” you say against your better judgment. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Cum all over me.”

His cock twitches at your last suggestion.

“Ugh, Basilio, you’re really killing the mood here,” Crispin strains to say, holding you gently by the neck. “I pulled out too, remember? Make up your mind already. I wouldn’t mind having her to myself for now, though.”

“Not a chance,” Basilio retorts, sliding the tip of his cock past your folds and pushing inside.

A loud cry rips from your throat at the sensations, feeling stuffed to the maximum as two cocks start to pump inside you. Crispin’s grip on your neck tightens, while you tangle your hands through Basilio’s hair, pulling him closer and kissing him.

Soon, The Twins find a steady rhythm, syncing their movement so you can feel the full force of their thrusts. Basilio throws one of your legs over his shoulder and begins to massage your clit with his thumb, while Crispin fondles your breasts with his free hand, using the tip of his fingers to roll, squeeze, and pull at your nubs. With every thrust they give, you clench, drawing a groan from both of them as they felt themselves being squeezed by your muscles.

“Oh God,” you whine. “Fuck, you both feel so good.”

“Say our names,” Basilio growls, and you oblige.

You chant their names like a prayer, underscored by the slapping of skin as the Twins fucked both of your holes. Hearing their names only spurred them on, and their movements became more desperate, sweat rolling off of your bodies.

“Basilio! Crispin!”

Underneath you, Crispin gropes at your breast harder, beads of sweat rolling off of his forehead and dripping to your skin. “Your ass feels too good, I’m gonna cum,” he hissed between clenched teeth, and you silently thank Bathala that he’s near his limit. The lube is starting to wash off.

With a few more rough thrusts, he cums, shooting inside the rubber. Crispin cups your jaw and kisses you, deep and sweet, tasting your tongue. You’re on the verge of climax now too, and you give Basilio a desperate look. He understood what you meant.

The younger twin thrusts harder and faster while still rubbing that sensitive nub between your legs furiously, and the older one helps by stimulating your nipples once again. The bombardment of sensation is too much, and you feel white hot heat racing through your body as you cum one last time, voice hoarse as a throaty moan escapes past your open mouth.

The spasm of your muscles is enough to send Basilio over the edge too, pulling out of you and spilling his load all over the mound of your pussy, and your stomach. You feel Crispin slip out of you too. Basilio leans in to kiss you, almost tenderly, but still full of desperation, tongue and teeth.

After a quick cleanup and another drink of water, the three of you lay in a heap of limbs, exhausted. Crispin doesn’t shift at all, content on letting you lie next to him, while Basilio moves next to you, effectively sandwiching you between the two of them on the narrow bed.

Everyone is sated, and with your eyes growing heavy, you wanted nothing but sleep.

“So, who’s better?”

You don’t know who said it, but you raised your hand to give him a middle finger. “Tangina niyo, you’re both good. End of discussion. Now please let me sleep.”

Thank Bathala that they did.

The next morning, all three of you wake up sweaty, stinking, and really, really hungry.

“Good morning to you two,” you sigh, snaking your arms around theirs. Each of them gave you a kiss on your temple. “Damn, I’m starving,” you said, sitting up. “Let’s take a shower and grab something to e-”

Underneath the three of you, the bed’s legs give out, and a loud thud can be heard throughout the house. As you three scramble for purchase, frantic footsteps are approaching, and the door bursts open.

“What was that? Crispin is missing from his room and-” Hank blurts, toting his good ol’ triple barrel shotgun "Ama, Anak, at, Espiritu Santo". Funnily enough, when he sees the tangle of limbs before him, he utters the same words and quickly turns away. Alexandra arrives shortly after, gives them a quick glance, and shuts the door.

Breakfast with their bossing is filled with a mortifying quiet.

You barely touch your food, embarrassment burning your cheeks, and you shoot a glance at your twin lovers.

“Next time, lock the door,” Alex finally says, getting up from the table with a coffee in her hands. She’s too fucking exhausted to deal with this.

“It’s Basilio’s fault!” Crispin yells after her. Basilio made no attempts to defend himself, knowing that he forgot to lock the door again after he came back with the water.

Grumbling, you finally take a bite of your breakfast, jacket draped over your shoulders despite the heat to hide the bruises on your body. “The girls are gonna have a field day when they see me like this.”

“I need to replace the bed,” Basilio mumbles, stuffing his mouth with rice.

The three of you looked at each other, and laughed.

“So, see you next week?” Crispin asks with a smile, and Basilio gives you a pleading, doe-eyed look.

“Yeah. See you two next week.”

Translations for non-English speakers:

tropa: ground of friends. People you chill with

tangina niyo: Filipino profanity. Roughly translates to "you sons of bitches"

Ama, Anak, at Espiritu Santo: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s Hank’s weapon’s actual name in the comics.

482 notes · View notes

brushstrokesapocalyptic · 3 years ago

Text

it’s time for the “overanalyzing one-off lines” show!

so the very first thing magnus says when he sees pit in chapter 2 of kid icarus: uprising is as follows:

“Well, I didn’t expect to see an angel here. Hope this doesn’t mean I’ve kicked the bucket.”

now, i’m not sure if you’re aware, but that’s a really weird thing for someone to say, and it’s even more weird that no one comments on it. pit and palutena go on talking about unrelated things, as if that’s a totally normal and expected thing for magnus to say.

now, if you’re like me, you probably also didn’t really react to this line the first few times you saw it. it’s the second chapter, kiu has a lot of slightly-odd lines which turn out to be foreshadowing. me, personally? my first thought was “oh, i guess angels are probably associated with escorting the dead to the afterlife,“ and then i moved on.

they’re not, though. that’s what reapers do. and there’s no way humans have these two races mixed up. just fucking look at them.

do they look anything alike to you??? no. they don’t. which raises the question of why, exactly, magnus said that.

now, we don’t know a lot about angels as a whole. pit (and by extension dark pit) is emphatically not the gold standard of angeldom. we can assume he looks fairly ordinary for an angel, seeing as no one has trouble identifying him as such. beyond that, though, a lot of what we know about angels comes from what pit isn’t. for starters, he can’t fly. and there’s something else, too, but i’ll get to that later.

before that, though, i’m gonna go through the various unsubstantiated comments made by people with a dubious level of authority on the subject. (incidentally, i sourced these screenshots from the wiki— much more convenient than trying to dig through youtube for every single random conversation.)

without any further ado! let’s get into it!

Angels as Messengers

Gaol: Aw, Palutena’s little messenger boy. And Magnus, it’s always a pleasure. (src)

in the specific context of overanalyzing magnus’s first line, this is an important sentence to pick out. magnus and gaol are both humans, both with presumably a fairly similar history as mercenaries up until gaol got stuffed in a suit of armor. but while magnus makes a weird comment about death, gaol calls pit a messenger.

and pit agrees with her!

Viridi: I wish I had an angel to do my bidding. It’s like having an intern.

Pit: I’m not an intern. I’m a messenger of the gods!

Viridi: Poor Pit. Don't you know that the definition of angel is "errand spirit"? (src)

this particular conversation is the most insight we get into angels as a whole, i think. viridi thinks of angels as like divine interns, there to do little tasks for gods, and palutena doesn’t exactly disagree with her. pit says they’re specifically messengers, which lines up with biblical mythology. i could see the traditional role of angels in the world of KI being exactly that, showing up to tell the humans what the gods have to say because the gods themselves are too busy being petty jerks to do it themselves.

The Angel’s Code of Conduct

Magnus: You go in fully dressed? Don't you at least want to change into a...swimming tunic or something?

Pit: Oh, no no no! The angel's code of conduct says that we must always be ready for duty.

Magnus: I guess you wouldn't be an angel if you didn't do things by the book. (src)

Pit: Hey! You know the angel's code of conduct! I need to be prepared at all times! (src)

another random little thing is the angel’s code of conduct. without a larger sample size, we can’t know if it’s a real thing or just an excuse to save on laundry, but apparently it’s against the rules to not be on call at all times. in pit’s case, the duty he has to be ready for is doing palutena’s dirty work, but it can easily mean just about anything— including, of course, being a messenger.

No Warrior

Chariot Master: But you are no warrior, angel. Tell me, why do you fight?

Pit: I fight for Lady Palutena. And I fight for the people under her protection!

Chariot Master: That's not reason enough for an angel. (src)

remember how i said there was something else weird about pit? the chariot master seems to think angels aren’t very prone to battle— or perhaps even that they’re actively opposed to it. this lines up well with the idea that they’re supposed to be messengers, peaceful go-betweens for gods and mortals. this does not line up well with pit, the adorable weapon of mass destruction.

and it also does absolutely nothing to explain the question driving the whole existence of this post.

you know what does kinda lean towards an explanation?

No Other Angels

Pit: Do all gods have their own angels, like you have me?

Palutena: No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. (src)

i said before that the Intern Pit conversation had the most illuminating information on angels. this is what i was actually referring to. on its own, it’s pretty innocuous, but it’s just as weird as the magnus line. shouldn’t pit know about other angels, seeing as he is one himself? but he doesn’t know if there are other angels.

the only angels we ever see are him and his clone. no one ever directly references the existence of other angels, they only make general statements about what angels as a whole are like— statements which clearly don’t apply to pit, meaning they’re not just extrapolating based on the one angel that definitely does exist.

the one time someone does comment on the hypothetical existence of other angels, palutena gives a vague answer to the tune of “no,” the topic is changed, and no one brings it up again.

let’s go over everything i’ve established about angels up to this point. they can fly, they’re peaceful messengers of the gods, and pit is the only one that seems to exist as of the start of KIU.

it should be pretty obvious at this point what answer i’m dancing around, if it wasn’t obvious from the start. pit is the only angel around because all the other ones are dead. the reason why magnus said what he did is that his thought process went something like this:

See an angel.

Think “Aren’t angels extinct? Is that a ghost? Am I a ghost? I sure hope not.“

Make a quip about that.

Move on with his life, because he isn’t dead and evidently neither is this guy.

i’m not gonna pretend i went into this post with the intent of any other conclusion to that mystery. anyone who’s bothered glancing over a plot summary for the original kid icarus can draw that conclusion. it’s certainly what i did, reinforced by fics by people who had the same thought!

the truth, however, is that this was all a trick to get you to read my analysis of the theoretical nature of angels as a race. now that you’re invested, i’m going to dramatically throw aside my cape and reveal my TRUE FORM: telling people that fandom consensus is wrong, and my ideas are cooler and better than everyone else’s and you should all throw roses at my feet and bow before your king.

(or just, y’know, take it as the subjective analysis that it is. whatever floats your boat.)

Hot Takes

the original kid icarus does not actually tell you about angels going extinct. here’s the wiki article with the full text of the backstory, just for convenience, so you know what i’m on about for the rest of this post.

so, the part of the story that i think gets misinterpreted is this part about palutena’s army.

Medusa led a surprise attack on Palutena's army which could barely fend off the attack. Palutena's army suffered major losses and was heavily defeated in the final battle.

specifically, i think a lot of people interpret said army as having been made up at least partly of angels. sure, in the actual game it consists entirely of centurions, but you have to take old NES games with a grain of salt. i know i don’t buy for a second that pit was part of palutena’s guard before the original game (he was just too goddamn young), there’s nothing wrong with reinterpreting things.

recall everything i established about angels already, though. this is the hot official lore, from the game everyone knows and loves. angels are messengers, and if the chariot master is to be believed, never warriors. pit is an outlier. palutena’s army consists of centurions, not angels. if medusa wiped them out, it wasn’t because they were fighting for palutena.

(and honestly, i don’t think angels are necessarily associated with palutena exclusively. sure, she’s got the wing imagery, and she’s got the one known surviving angel working for her, at least up until pittoo is born. but angels are messengers of the gods, not messengers of palutena. again, pit is an outlier.)

which all brings us to the real question of this post.

what the FUCK happened to all the other angels? why is there only pit? why does magnus act surprised to see a messenger of the gods, and make a quip about being dead, if not because angels are otherwise extinct?! WHO KILLED THEM, AND WHY?!

thus concludes the “over analyzing one-off lines“ show. see you next, uh, maybe at some point if i feel like it!

(also another thought i had but couldn’t find room to fit it in properly: the gods don’t really act like angels are all extinct, but i feel like that can be explained through the sheer scale of a god’s lifespan. if we assume they were wiped out sometime around the original kid icarus (even if not as palutena’s army) then that’s a whole twenty-five years. that’s a long time for us humans, but for a god, that might as well be last tuesday. “yeah, i know what angels are like. sure wish i could have one. too bad palutena’s got a monopoly on the one single angel that medusa didn’t manage to wreck.”)

#kid icarus #kid icarus uprising #the things i think of at five am #i am just yelling and spewing thoughts and theories and headcanons #if anyone has their own thoughts to add go right ahead i am dying to know whether or not i'm actually breaking new ground with all this #or if there's some vital lore i missed #or anything like that #i am OPEN for CONVERSATION

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stillness-in-green · 3 years ago

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No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

------------------------

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #bnha meta #yotsubashi rikiya #yotsubashi chikara #re-destro #destro bnha #meta liberation army #my writing #i have thoughts on the anime's nonsense too but #hahawow #that's gonna take a little longer to get coherent #preview: it's not about capitalism #it's about fear

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fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy · 3 years ago

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Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭��😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

#tales of arcadia #rise of the titans #trollhunters #rott #rise of the titans spoilers #rott spoilers #toa #3 below #athena's own original post!#jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski

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pumpkinpaix · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

#Anonymous #asks and replies #art #fanart #art history #christianity #mdzs #mdzs meta #meta #mine #mymeta #cyan gets too deep in the weeds #lmfao this post is a mess ive been staring at it for like a week and at this point im just gonna post it to the wall and keep moving asldfj #hope you enjoyed

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xxm1m1kyuxx · 4 years ago

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korekiiyo shiingujii ana1ysiis

spoii1ers for ndrv3!

iit’s quiite hard to wriite 1iike thiis wiith autocorrect on, so from the 1iine break be1ow ii wii11 not be usiing my typiing quiirk Σ(･口･)

word count (exc1udiing author’s notes): 1,611 words

tota1: 1,717 words

for siimp1iiciity's sake, ii've done thiis on computer so that there's not a wa11 of text

~*~

"You wonder, "Who is this?" Yes... I shall make that clear first. My name is Korekiyo Shinguji... I am called the Ultimate Anthropologist."

~*~

Hello everyone, my name is Milo, and today I’ll be doing my best to cover one of my favorite characters in the Danganronpa universe, Korekiyo Shinguji. He is originally from the 3rd mainline game, New Danganronpa v3: Killing Harmony. Since I don’t physically own the game, I’m basing most of this essay entirely on the Danganronpa Wiki page for Shinguji. Please read that if you desire a more lengthy look at his actions from an unbiased perspective since this one leans more towards empathy than hatred. Whoops!

We first properly meet him after talking to everyone else inside of Hope’s Peak. He’s in the main hall and standing away from the doors leading out to the courtyard. When he introduces himself, Shinguji goes on to talk about anthropology and the beauty of humanity. This proceeds to creep Akamatsu out.

Alongside that, in Chapter 3, we are unfortunately forced to see his relationship with his sister. It’s weird and only gets weirder if you spend two of your Free Time events talking to him when you first play as Akamatsu. He’s evaluated that all girls present at the academy would be great “friends” for his sister, barring Iruma and Harukawa. This is because Shinguji believes that Harukawa doesn’t believe in the power of love, and Iruma is just… well, she’s Iruma. Hardly the girl you would want to send home to your parents.

This weird incest plotline is unfortunately present in most Danganronpa games, such as Leon and his cousin (though one-sided on his cousin’s behalf; he didn’t like her), Tsumugi in the Love Hotel (if you consider that canon), and Monotaro & Monophanie (which is then implemented into Gokuharu’s execution, killing them both).

His sister’s name is never disclosed in-game or in any other Danganronpa media, so the fandom dubbed her “Miyadera/Miyatera,” which is an alternate way of reading Shinguji’s last name. The miya character - represented as 宮 - and tera character - 寺 - are both present in Shinguji, 真宮寺. For the rest of this essay/paper, I’ll be referring to his sister as Miyadera, and himself as Shinguji.

I’ll be getting deeper into his mischaracterization later on, but I want to talk about his appearance for now. Mainly, his hair, his mask, and the lipstick he wears. From what we see of Miyadera in Shinguji’s execution, if that is Miyadera at all, we can see that she had long hair, and when Shinguji was turned into a ghost, it was the exact shade of Shinguji’s hair. From here, we can assume that Miyadera looks exactly, if not similar, to Shinguji.

His lipstick and mask are results of representations of his tulpa, Miyadera. Tulpa is defined as “a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.” In much simpler terms, it is an object or living thing that was created/imagined through spiritual/mental abilities. Shinguji gained a tulpa by being beaten half to death by villagers shortly after arriving there. When he was in a state between life and death, he saw his sister, who joined his subconscious and took control of his body whenever his mask was off. It’s why we only see him take off his make once Saihara dubs him the culprit of Chapter 3, and why his voice suddenly took a more feminine tone. A quote from Miyadera, which can be found in the game, is, "Sweet Korekiyo, calm yourself... Their words are all hollow. There is no meaning to any of them... You must teach these ignorant children a lesson."

That statement can be interpreted two ways, one; that she’s trying to calm him down and two; she’s repeating whatever she said to him during childhood. It’s implied that Miyadera passed away from disease sometime before Killing Harmony takes place, which is both a good and bad thing. It’s great because then we have some time frame of how she was and how she acted when Shinguji knew her best.

Whenever I read the quote above, or any of her quotes, to be honest, I am filled with a sense of dread, or even, despair. The following quote especially makes me feel terrible; "Calm yourself, Korekiyo. You mustn't raise your voice. You mustn't stutter. You mustn't lose composure. You mustn't become flustered. You mustn't waver. Look at their horrid faces. This sorry lot is not worth agonizing over."

Have you noticed how she’s setting guidelines on how to defend himself? She’s turning Shinguji’s attention away from Saihara and the trial and to her because she knows that Shinguji trusts her even after all these years.

You might be wondering, “Milo, what the hell does that all have to do with Shinguji?” And I’ll tell you plain and simple: he was abused by Miyadera. Shocking, I know. Having Shinguji rave and rant about being in love with her, only to be a victim? Sadly, it’s very true indeed. Shinguji was most likely groomed and gaslighted into thinking that Miyadera loved him when that was not the case.

Gaslighting is defined as, “[to] manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.” From the two quotes I provided, it doesn’t seem to make sense. Miyadera only sounds like a kind, worrisome older sister. Incorrect, I say. She’s emotionally gaslighting him, trying to make him believe that the trial makes no sense and he shouldn’t worry about any of them. I can also bet she used this tactic to control him as a younger person as well.

It’s a well-known fact that children are both impressionable and gullible. If an older sister figure came up to you as a child and told you to do unmentionable things, unfortunately, you might follow her directions. Shinguji states that his sister was a sickly girl who often stayed in the hospital. When she would come home, he’d be at his easiest to manipulate. Why would his dear, sweet, sickly, older sister ever lie to him?

Next, I’m going to be covering his relationships with other students, namely Shuichi Saihara and Rantaro Amami. These will delve further into spoiler territory, so if you didn’t already read the warnings I put in place, here is your extra warning for spoilers for Chapter 3 of Killing Harmony.

To start with, I’ll be exploring his poorer relationships first. Most of the girls fit into this category, namely Iruma, Harukawa, Chabashira, and Yonaga - that means he has a terrible standing with four of the eight girls present at the beginning of Killing Harmony, five if you count Yumeno’s way of dealing with Chabashira’s murder. Shinguji even taunts her once they solve that mystery, stating, “Let me guess, you’ll never forgive me. Himiko, you must hate me so very much right now. Maybe you’d feel better if I was executed by Monokuma…”

Shinguji has a poor relationship with Iruma and Harukawa due to seeing them as “unfit” to be “friends” with Miyadera. He has a poor relationship with Chabashira because he’s a degenerate male, but he still thinks she made a good friend for his sister. His poor relationship with Yonaga is shown in Chapter 3 when Yonaga forms the student council. Once again, I’m making amends to some parts of the characters. I’ll be referring to Yonaga’s god as God, simply because Atua is an actual Polynesian god in real life. Shinguji doesn’t worship any god, and so wants to study Yonaga’s God purely for anthropologic purposes. This displeases Yonaga, who then states that God's business hours are closed for the day. In Chapter 3 when Yumeno brings up Yonaga’s God, he simply asks whether or not they’re done talking about it, cementing his distrust in faith.

Next, I’ll cover his better relationships. Akamatsu isn’t too terribly creeped out by him and instead sees Shinguji as a kind guy who cares about his sister. Akamatsu even apologizes for saying that Shinguji would be into inc*st, this event either taking place in his first or second Free Time event. I’m saving his and Saihara’s relationship for last since I’ll have the most to write about then. Instead, please enjoy the news that in the events of Ultimate Talent Development Plan (UTDP for typing purposes), Shinguji and Amami are actually great friends. In Amami’s first free time event, he tells Akamatsu that Korekiyo has a strong personality, but she’ll be able to understand him plenty if she takes time to. It’s also stated that Amami emphasizes that Shinguji is also the calm and clever type.

Lastly, I’ll be exploring his relationship with Saihara. It’s slightly rocky, if only because Shinguji hasn’t let go of his sister yet, but it’s miles better than his relationship with Chabashira. Slight side note before we begin, I’ll be discounting the Love Hotel scene mostly because I’m a minor and I don’t feel completely comfortable having to watch that simply because I’m writing an analysis. As the game progresses to Chapter 3, Shinguji and Saihara have built trust between themselves. While Saihara still found Shinguji creepy, he [Saihara] never discounted him simply for existing. There was even a point where Shinguji offered to help Saihara communicate with Akamatsu from beyond the grave, though he was turned down.

Korekiyo Shinguji is a misunderstood and somewhat tragic character who usually gets disregarded and uncredited all because people do not like him. However he’s not an “uwu soft twamatized bean <3” either. He’s a strong character who has questionable morals at best and a terrible representation of an abused character at worst.

~*~

thank you for readiing!! p1ease make sure to get a hea1thy amount of s1eep and that you do have a cup of water and some food, you deserve iit!!

sources:

- https://danganronpa.fandom.com/wiki/Korekiyo_Shinguji

- https://www.quotev.com/story/7873923/Danganronpa-Class-Trials/73 (siide note: how fucked up iis iit that ii was on1y ab1e to fiind a transcriiptiion of the triia1 on quotev)

#korekiyo shinguji #shinguji korekiyo #sister shinguji #miyadera shinguji #drv3 #ndrv3 #killing harmony #new danganronpa v3 #new danganronpa killing harmony #character analysis #korekiyo shinguji analysis

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yumeka36 · 3 years ago

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Thoughts on Rebuild of Evangelion (all movies plus ending interpretation)

*Artwork credited to リオ on pixiv*

Now that Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, the last movie of the Rebuild of Evangelion saga, has been released, I'm finally ready to discuss all the movies as a whole, including my interpretation of the ending...

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

I've been a fan of Evangelion for nearly 20 years, starting back in 2002. After hearing the series praised by some classmates, I asked for the DVD set of the original TV anime for Christmas that year. I was 15 years old and a fairly new anime fan at the time, so naturally I was blown away by the show. The Internet was young then, and since there were no fandom wikis or YouTube explanation videos available in those days, I had to rely on a few scattered fan sites and my own resources (mostly bonus features on the old DVDs) to try and figure out the lore and symbolism. Even though many aspects of the series, as well as the eventual "true ending" movie, End of Evangelion, left me scratching my head, I still loved it and it left a long-lasting impression on me. And now, here I am almost two decades later, sharing my thoughts about the new movies...

-Before Thrice Upon a Time was released, I hadn't touched Evangelion since 3.33 came out in 2012. I had forgotten many details, and since Evangelion is a franchise that is fraught with nuances and subtleties that can be key to understanding what the heck is going on, I wanted to watch all the Rebuild movies again before watching Thrice Upon a Time. So I plowed through all four movies this week, and I gotta say, after being away from the franchise for so many years, I'm happy to report that I still thoroughly enjoyed it. But I can also recognize that it is definitely not a series for everyone. The drawn-out technobabble, constant introduction of lore jargon with little to no explanation, and the ambiguity between what's real and what's symbolic, can certainly turn off casual viewers (it gives Kingdom Hearts lore a run for its money!) Funnily enough, as I was watching the Rebuild movies, I was thinking, "I understood the lore better 20 years ago than I do now, lol" (maybe it's because I was younger and didn't have as strong of a theorizing mind as I do now!) But after reading through a bunch of pages on the EvaGeeks Wiki, I learned enough to get a gist of the story's vaguer elements. But unfortunately, the fact that information necessary for understanding the plot can only be found by Internet research, could certainly be a turn-off for viewers. But at the same time, for those willing to make the commitment, or at least appreciate the series' other qualities even if you can't follow many aspects of the lore, it's definitely an anime unlike any other. There's a reason it's been such a well-known franchise in Japan for so long.

-Asuka has been one of my favorite anime characters ever since I saw the original Eva TV series, and thankfully, I'm happy with what they did with her character in the Rebuild movies. My only complaint is that I preferred her original backstory that emphasized her relationship with her mother, rather than having a "clone-complex" similar to Rei. However, her character development in this new storyline made up for it. The Rebuild movies really nailed her abrasive, no-nonsense personality that hides depth within. There were also more scenes that showed her "softer" side, something I always felt was lacking in the original series, such as when she confides in Misato towards the end of 2.22 and when she confesses her feelings to Shinji in Thrice Upon a Time. I also felt her initial dislike for Shinji and Rei was a bit more warranted this time; despising the fact that they were able to become Eva pilots purely by connection to Gendo while she had to work hard for it. But again, we get more hints at her kinder side when she makes the sacrifice to help Rei get Shinji and Gendo together. This is pretty contrasting to the original series, where she was always oozing hate for Rei. Even their infamous elevator scene ended differently in 2.22 compared to the TV series, where instead of hitting and yelling at Rei, she agrees to help her (in her subtle, Asuka-way). Asuka and Rei also had a brief scene together when they were at Village 3 in Thrice Upon a Time, and the way Asuka talked to her made me feel like she actually cared about her, or at least didn't hate her. But even with the Rebuild movies giving Asuka more scenes to show her goodness, they still stayed true to her tough-love personality - it's not like she suddenly started smiling a lot, or gave Shinji a passionate hug, or broke out in tears...they developed her character without making her do a 180 change, which I appreciated. Even in her final scene with Shinji on the beach before he saves her (loved that scene, and the shoutout to End of Eva there) she still reacted in her "tsundere" way (though not as harshly of course). I'd also like to mention that they made the fourteen year time-skip in 3.33 very believable in terms of Asuka's growth. I really liked the hardened, lone-wolf, protector role she had in Thrice Upon a Time because it makes sense - fourteen years had passed and she not only matured during that time, but she had spent all those years being the sole Eva pilot along with Mari fighting to protect humanity, so settling into that kind of identity makes sense for her. But yeah, Asuka's always been a great character, and the Rebuild movies made her even more awesome in my opinion.

-When I first watched 2.22 years ago when it came out, I was puzzled that they decided to put Asuka in the Eva that Unit-01 ends up destroying rather than Toji. But looking back on it it now, it worked better since they had a plan for Toji's character that had nothing to do with the Evas. I did kind of miss Asuka's friendship with Hikari though (they could have tied that into her staying with Toji and Hikari at Village 3 instead of with Kensuke). I actually wrote a WYDS fanfic for End of Evangelion way back in 2003 that emphasizes Asuka and Hikari's friendship (that's somehow still on Fanfiction.net!) But she got a friendship with Mari instead, so it's fine, lol (I also liked that they removed her crush on Kaji, which I never thought fit well in the original series). But I do wish we got to see what was going through her mind while she was stuck in the Eva and getting attacked by Unit-01. We know she was aware of what was going on because she knew what Shinji did (that he didn't try to save her or attack) so it would have been nice to see a scene or two of her reactions.

-Misato was always my second favorite character after Asuka, but I wasn't thrilled with the coldness she exhibited towards Shinji after the time-skip in 3.33. I know she probably got hardened after all those years and maybe still felt resentment towards him for initiating Near Third Impact (which killed Kaji among others). But even so, I felt like her coldness was more to keep the suspense rather than stay true to her character (plus she was the one encouraging him to do what we wanted at the time of Near Third Impact). It makes sense for Asuka to be cold to Shinji, since she was always standoffish like that, but Misato was always shown to be a source of warmth and the most "human" of the characters. But at least she made up with Shinji in the end and got to finish her story arc with a bang (literally).

-I'm not sure if it's still a thing now, but back in the day, Shinji got a lot of hate from anime fans for being too whiny and indecisive when confronted with his task of piloting the Eva. But even all those years ago, I always thought those reactions made him believable. Maybe it's because he's compared to anime shonen heroes like Naruto and Luffy, who are always cheerful and brimming with motivation, while Shinji is pretty much the opposite of those kinds of characters. But it makes sense for him to be like that...if I were a fourteen-year old kid who never knew my mother, had a father who abandoned me, and had to live on my own in a crumbling world while witnessing death and destruction all around, I'd be pretty hesitant and scared too. He's definitely not a "wish-fulfilling" protagonist like many shonen and super heroes are, but a protagonist grounded more in reality, representing a disillusioned youth. So it was nice to see him finally get over his insecurities and be proactive with saving everyone at the end of Thrice Upon a Time (compared to everyone giving him the pep talk at the end of the original series). Though I did think his personality shift was a bit abrupt...he was at his lowest point at the beginning of Thrice Upon a Time, but the one kind gesture from Rei seemed to immediately snap him out of it. A little more gradual build-up to his change would have been better, but it's a nitpick.

-Mari was an enigma in 2.22 and 3.33, so I was hoping Thrice Upon a Time would give us her origin story. Unfortunately, it didn't offer much and maybe brought up more questions than not. My main question is, we see that she knew Gendo and Yui when they were younger, yet if she was their age then, that doesn't match up to the age she appears to be when Shinji first meets her. So she must have been afflicted with the "Eva curse" all those years back, which means she must have become an Eva pilot around that time, but it seems too soon. I thought the first Evangelion pilots didn't exist until after Yui died, so Mari should have been older...I don't know, I'm still having trouble figuring out her place in the timeline. But besides that, I did like her relationship with Asuka that we see in Thrice Upon a Time. Again, it makes sense in terms of the time-skip that they'd develop a good friendship after spending all those years being Eva pilots together.

-I don't have a lot to say about Rei, since I feel her story arc is one of the simpler ones (which isn't saying much for this series, lol). The scenes of her in Village 3 in Thrice Upon a Time were endearing, though I knew they would end in tragedy. Actually, that whole part of the movie with the characters spending time in the village was great. The world-building in those scenes was fantastic too - it really felt like what a post-apocolyptic survival camp in that situation would be like. It was nice to see the characters partaking in and reacting to situations that don't have to do with Angels and Evas (spin-off series for this when?)

-And lastly, how did I interpret the end of the Rebuild saga? Was I satisfied with how it ended? Right after I watched Thrice Upon a Time, I wasn't totally sure. But after reading some more wiki pages and watching some explanation videos, especially this one here (it's a great explanation if you can forgive the bad pronunciation of the names), I've realized just how brilliant of a conclusion it is. There's been speculation that the story involves a time loop, with the events of the original TV series, as well as the Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies, being different versions of the time loop, while the Rebuild movies is where the loop ends because Shinji finally overcomes the pain of his past and can restore the world this time (while he had failed to in the previous loops). I don't think it's a time loop so much as a cycle that keeps resetting and repeating. Further support for this theory is that Kaoru acts like he's met Shinji before, since he's reborn in each cycle to meet Shinji only to be killed by him later (all the coffins seen on the moon are for his past/future selves). I think the final movie title is symbolic of this too, with "Thrice Upon a Time" meaning "three times upon a time," the three times being the three cycles of the Evangelion story: the original TV series, the movies Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, and finally the Rebirth movies. But mostly, the scene towards the end where Shinji meets Rei in the anti-verse, and they're standing in what appears to be a filming room while projected images from the Eva TV series are shown behind them. This to me symbolizes that the original Eva series exists in the Rebuild movies as one version of the cycle, and Shinji has now finally broken out of the loop. Once Shinji has saved everyone, the filming room (which symbolizes the old versions of the story, as I believe it's supposed to be the room where live-action footage used in previous Eva works was filmed) fades away and the literal animation around Shinji begins to break down into its purest forms, as key animation, then layouts, etc., - a near 4th wall-breaking depiction of the world resetting. However, Gendo and Yui had sacrificed themselves so that Shinji wouldn't have to, so Mari is able to pull him back into the world, just like she had promised. In the end, Shinji is able to join his friends in the new world that's free of Evas. Without the Eva curse, all the pilots are now their proper ages as well. The movie closes with Mari and Shinji heading off somewhere in their new lives while the environment merges into live-action footage, representing the fact that the story has now transcended animation and is now "real" because the cycle has finally ended and a true Neon Genesis took place. Like many aspects of the franchise, there are many ways to interpret this ending, but this is the interpretation I've settled on.

-While I am satisfied with the ending overall, I do wish the epilogue showed us more of what the other characters were doing, especially the survivors from Wille and Village 3. I know we can assume they're living out their lives as well, but it would have been nice to get confirmation of that with a few quick cameos. But there are some main characters whose fates are uncertain, particularly Misato, Kaji, and Fuyutsuki. I'm assuming the only people Shinji was able to save were the ones whose souls were still bound to Evas, namely Asuka, Rei, and Kaoru. I don't know about Kaji since I'm still not clear on exactly how he died. Maybe Shinji couldn't save Misato because she died "for real" and wasn't just trapped inside an Eva/Angel. But it is implied that many souls, not just Eva pilots, were saved when the world was restored...so maybe she was too? And like Kaji, I'm not sure what happened with Fuyutsuki. Did he turn into LCL because he gave up his humanity in some way, like Gendo? I'm also a little salty that we didn't get a decent shot of adult Asuka at the train station, lol. I'm not sure if the ending was hinting at Mari and Shinji being an item...possibly Rei and Kaoru too, maybe even Asuka and Kensuke. Like many things in the franchise, the eventual pairings, or lack thereof, could be interpreted in many ways.

In conclusion, while there were some aspects of the old Eva TV series and movies that I liked better, the Rebuild movies overall did an excellent job of retelling the story with the same rich lore and thought-provoking symbolism that we're used to for the franchise, but with enough new twists to make it stand out. And as I mentioned in my interpretation of the ending, these movies weren't just a retelling but a redefinition of the franchise as whole, bringing together the previous versions of the story and giving them true closure. Though we could see some spin-off material at some point, Thrice Upon a Time does seem like it was intended to be the final installment of the Evangelion series. While I was satisfied enough with the endings for the TV series and End of Eva movie, having watched the Rebuild movies, I do believe they're the "retelling we didn't know we needed." It's a tad bittersweet to know that such an influential franchise, and one of my favorite anime for years, has come to its true end. So, to translate the text in the below fan art...

"Thank you , Evangelion."

*Artwork credited to リオ on pixiv*

#evangelion 3.0+1.0 #neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #rebuild of evangelion #evangelion spoilers #rei ayanami #asuka shikinami langley #shinji ikari #evangelion thrice upon a time

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kathyrealmstales · 4 years ago

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NEW SMP THEORY! (I cracked the plot!)

Hello! I came up with a new theory, but this time I did some real work and I didn't just throw out random ideas. Crazy, right?

But seriously, I think I have a good theory for today.

Disclaimers: to begin with, spoilers for Dream SMP and Kingdom Heart. (Strange to see that game in a warning for the SMP, huh? Well, we will get to that soon.)

Also, just remember this is roleplay, all the actors are friends. If I see you trash-talking the actors you're being blocked. I don’t like hate.

I also wish to thank my sister for her assistance. I don't know much about the Kingdom Heart fandom except with what the Wiki tells me by watching my sister play it, so my sister had to suffer while I tried to find connections in a block game roleplay. Thank you so much, my loving sister.

Under this line is the theory! Hope you enjoy it!

------------------------------------THE START--------------------------

If you are familiar with the tales of the SMP, then you might already know a common theory.

The theory is that the TOTSMP area, "The In-between," is based on Castle Oblivion from Kingdom Heart. It looks exactly like the interior of the castle in the game, as well as the idea of losing memories. It's a cool easter egg.

However, my theory doesn't stop there, because I began to see more connections, making me believe that maybe the latest plot of the SMP is following a bit of Kingdom Heart plot.

Let me try to break it down into evidence and explanations.

In the latest episode of TOTSMP, Karl travels to this new world, escaping the "In-between" and going to this place called “The Other Side.” A strange name, but what is even stranger is that I felt I had already seen the castle before, so of course I did some research.

For starters, I noticed the In-between warned Karl that if he left, he would lose all of his memories, kind of like in Kingdom Heart when Sora went to that sleep state, he lost his memories. I thought there had to be a connection to the Kingdom Heart and this new world Karl was in now since it seemed to be following a pattern.

I tried to do more research by using Wiki and looking up other castles in the game that it could be. I came up with a few ideas, but none of them stuck. It just made no sense, so I went to the only person I know who knows Kingdom Heart more than me, my sister.

My sister and I love playing these games together, but while I'm just trying to figure how the game works (because of my love for coding), my sister listens to the plot and knows way more than I. Sure, we haven't finished all the games, but she knows enough to help me. So we got on the phone to figure out how this new world was connected, and when I left that call, I saw the Dream SMP in a whole new light.

- The Other Side evidence

We have an idea of what the Other Side looks like but that’s it. My sister believes it resembles the Hollow Bastion, which is intriguing. She claims it is linked to Castle Oblivion, but what makes it more interesting is that she said this place is also usually where the Kingdom Heart stories end. This got my attention since Dream hinted that the story’s end might be approaching soon. (I hope it's not-)

I then thought we had a good idea for the theory, a rather small one about the TOTSMP but a good one. So still wanting to talk to her, I told her why I was asking for her ideas, and then I explained the Dream SMP plot to her. The more we talked about the plot, though, the more my sister and I noticed parallels between the stories.

Eggpire evidence

To begin, we discussed the Egg People. I jokingly said, "Oh, does Kingdom Heart have mind-controlled people?" She replied, "if you count the heartless." Which shocked me because it makes the Egg People’s ability to pick who is controlled or not make so much sense!

You see, the Heartless are people without a heart (Hearts are similar to people's souls in the game, which is strange. But oh well). The heartless follow the rules of the Darkness. I'm not sure whom or what controls the Darkness, but I do know they are subjected to some sort of mind control or animal instinct. The most important aspect to consider is how they multiply. They seek out characters from whom they can steal hearts of so they can turn back into normal people. However, they need their own heart, not just a random one, so this method is ineffective and just makes more heartless.

Because of this information, I came up with a theory that may be the reason why the egg only works on certain people. I think it is the same reason why only some turn heartless. People with weak souls are usually turned, while people with more light in their souls are typically more difficult to turn to a heartless, implying that while Puffy and Sam had weak souls at the time, they are becoming stronger, making it more difficult for "darkness" or the egg to mind control them.

Also, this would explain why Tommy can't be mind-controlled at all; he is mostly made of light, and everyone sees him as the hero. It would just make sense; it’s really hard to control him.

Pandora’s box evidence

There seems to be a correlation with the prison. This one is probably my favorite because it makes the most sense to me.

Most theories believe the prison is similar to Pandora's Box, owing to the prison's name. However, Kingdom Heart had its own Pandora's Box, and no, I'm not referring to the one in Hercules' world. I'm talking about the box that was told to never be opened.

I don't know everything about Kingdom Heart, therefore, I can't go into great detail about this box like I did with the Heartless theory, but basically, the main dude who started the plot of Kingdom Heart had a bunch of apprentices, and he left them with a box that they were never supposed to open. Of course, the bad guys got the box and opened it, only to discover that it contained some time-traveling stuff, which caused some of the apprentices and The Keyblade of all Keybladeds to appear.

If we take that information and put it in place with Dream SMP characters, it looks like where the plot might be going. Dream is the main bad guy who opens the box with whatever he has. What emerges is Wilbur Soot, a man from the past, he takes the place of the apprentices and Tommy is the Keyblade of Keyblades.

What makes me believe Tommy is the Keyblade? I mean, It could be someone else, but the thing is, Dream keeps referring to Tommy as "the Key," and in Kingdom Heart, Sora is also referred to as "the Key." It's also possible that it could be Ranboo, since the key is made of both darkness and light, and Ranboo appears to look as if he is both, but this is all just speculation at this point.

Either way, I think we as a fandom were on the right track, thinking evil black boxes, just not Pandora’s box.

Organizations evidence

This is only tangentially related, but Kingdom Heart did have their group of evil bad guys whom, based on what I saw in the cut scenes, didn’t care if you show up to meetings or not. (basing this off of all those empty chairs. Then again, those chairs were really high up, I would miss meetings too if I had to sit in those things.)

Another thing to note about this organization is that they disliked higher authority, but this one opposed them because they were all about good and needed the princess's light, whereas the anarchist syndicate in the SMP were more anti-government. Nonetheless, both are going after government officials.

(The organization also had code names that were their real names, but with an X in them and scrambled around. They weren't as cool as the Anarchists Syndicate’s nicknames, but there was a connection.)

Now we'll look at the improbable evidence, as well as thoughts that might not make much sense.

Bad guys with correlations

The antagonist in Kingdom Heart had a bunch of copies of himself, procured with the help of time travel. I find this amusing, especially given that we know there are multiple Dreams in canon, including Dream, DreamXD, Mexican Dream, Girl Dream, and (possibly) Drista. It's almost as if he's the main antagonist, especially when considering the-- Norted thing, (that's what my sister called it. I'm not sure about the name, so we'll go with Norted Thing for now) The point is, he can control some people if they are willing, but they can rebel if they have strong hearts (again, I believe this is the case). This reminds me of Ranboo and his enderwalking state in which he hears Dream’s voice in his head. Again, just a hunch.

The plot is the same

This is the last piece of evidence I have, and it is the main fact from which I derived all of the connections. After my sister and I discussed the possibility of it being linked, I jokingly said during our call, "There are so many connections between the latest plot of the SMP and Kingdom Heart, The only difference I feel like they have is that the Dream SMP is all about how there is no bad or good, just greyscale, while Kingdom Heart is about dark vs light."

My sister responded, "It's the same thing. Most people believe it is dark vs. light, but the more you play the games, the more you realize it isn't. The majority of the characters begin as good or bad and gradually reveal their true selves. Nobody in the story is completely light or dark."

This shocked me because I always thought Kingdom Heart was about bad versus good. So now we've matched the main ideas as well!

Ohhh boy!

This is all I have for now. If you have anything to add, please send it to me as a comment or a submission, or simply make your own post and let me know so I can see it! (I know as I wrote this I found more connections, but I’m saving them for later.)

But, in any case, I believe you can see the idea--Dream SMP has some connections to the Kingdom Heart plot, assuming my theory is correct. It wouldn't be the first time. Dream SMP has loosely copied the Broadway show, Hamilton during the L'manburg war, and I know the writers like Disney at least for right now, so it makes sense.

I'm also going to leave you with this: Our Fandoms are the same, We get information that makes no sense and we have no idea where it fits in the puzzles, and we know (sometimes) the writers don't know either, so we just have to accept and enjoy it.

THAT IS ALL! GOOD DAY!

#smp theory #dsmp #dream smp #mcyt #theory #kingdom hearts #tales of the smp #just an idea

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probabltbry · 5 years ago

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Carole & Tuesday [Rants/My Opinion/Controversy]

THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE, PLEASE SKIM IT AT LEAST (T.T).

This is very different than what I usually post and I want to begin by saying that I may not have all of the facts! I am basing this on what I’ve seen other people say on this site (and others) and fact checking. I am open to learning and understanding more, and I will read any and all comments (if this post gets any lol). If this changes anything, I am making this post through the lense of a black bisexual female, so my view on things may be different. :)

I try to keep this spoiler free in general, but since I’m going to talk about characters and episodes that have released that’s a little impossible, so I will warn you if there are any spoilers in the section I discuss. I want people who haven’t seen the anime to get a taste of what it is!

In this long post I will touch on the following; LGBT+ representation, POC representation, exposure of the anime(streaming and where to find it), the community/fandom of C&T, Cybelle????!!, and other characters. Remember- this is my opinion and that is always subject to change.

For those of you who don’t know about Carole & Tuesday, it’s a Spring 2019 anime directed by Shinichiro Watanbe in association with the popular Bones studio. Shinichiro is well known for his other successful series such as Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloos and Space Dandy and Bones studio has produced many popular animes like Noragami, Soul Eater and Ouran High School Host Club, etc. [Fun fact, Cowboy Bebop and Carole & Tuesday are said to be set in the same universe and I died when I heard this.]

The plot of Carole & Tuesday, as provided by wiki is:

Set in the future on a partially terraformed Mars, teenager Tuesday Simmons runs away from her posh lifestyle as the daughter of a politician and makes her way to the populous Alba City to pursue her dream of being a musician with just a suitcase and her Gibsonacoustic guitar. On her first day in the city, she crosses paths with Carole Stanley, another aspiring musician who plays the piano, and the two decide to team up as a singer-songwriter duo under the name Carole & Tuesday.

Where can I find this? Why haven’t I heard of it?

I actually discovered Carole & Tuesday through google since I was looking at new and upcoming animes for the Spring and Summer of 2019. Sadly, the website I used show that Carole & Tuesday was an anime many people weren’t looking forward too- but that was only a handful of votes. Personally, I had been super ecstatic since, just from the promo poster, I assumed Carole and Tuesday would possibly be a couple, there’s a person of color as a main protaganist, and they’re both SUPER CUTE. This all made me happy beyond words.

As of now, Carole & Tuesday should only be available on Japan Netflix. Japanese viewers tend to prefer weekly released episodes whereas Americans prefer to binge shows. I am assuming that once the show has completed airing in Japan (there are going to be 24 episodes) it will appear on other Netflixs around the world.

I believe that’s why the promo for it has been severely lacking and the fanbase appears non-existant. The fandom is there, if you squint (which is why I’m surprised there’s already controversy). The fact that I had to look through a list on an unknown website and scroll to the bottom to find this anime is very showing of how unknown this anime is.

I also saw a post comparing Yuri!!! On Ice to Carole & Tuesday and I personally believe that OP took the wrong approach. I forgot the posters name (I will edit and tag if I find it again) but the post said something along theses lines; YOI is so popular because it’s a mlm show whereas C&T isn’t nearly as popular because it’s a wlw relationship with poc.

While this can prove to be true in the future, there are some major differences that were overlooked. I was into the YOI hype when it was first released but it didn’t truly become popular until Yuri and Viktor were canon and everyone was speculating whether it was a kiss or a hug, etc. Yuri!!! On Ice is also a relationship with a person of color, Yuri, and the anime was also supported by Crunchyroll, a major streaming service for Americans/others. It has had two years to become popular, grow and this is one of the very few animes that had positive lgbt+ representation since the relationship grew just as normally as any other type of relationship. It also wasn’t labeled a yaoi/shounen ai (though this sadly didn’t stop the fetishization of the characters and No.6 did it first but let’s move on-). It felt like a big step in the anime lgbt+ community and it won’t be forgotten!

Carole & Tuesday has just started off! Not much promotion is being shown in other countries outside of Japan and the first episode premiered in early April this year. I believe it’s harsh to compare C&T to such a popular anime when it’s literally just begun. It’s also exclusively on Netflix (besides pirating sites) so there is a little foreseeable loss since it won’t be available on Crunchyroll. But despite that I know there’s hope! Though mlm couples tend to be more popularly viewed, and any pairing that doesn’t have completely white/asian/white-presenting people in the relationship they tend to not garner much interests, but I don’t think C&T will fall into that pit. There’s simply not much promotion of it yet but it still has defied odds and has a fanbase with people from many different countries already!

Though I do see the OP’s point and concerns and they have facts on their side (look at fandometrics popular characters/couples, they’re mostly male) I think it’s too soon to point fingers.

Just imagine how large it’ll get when it has proper streaming (because many people do choose not to pirate in order to directly support the anime and it’s creators!). I think this is where our patience comes into play because if you have seen Carole & Tuesday already, you are most likely not using the most legal means. We are all early to the party.

LGBT+ and POC Representation (spoilers in part of this section, read first line):

I will say this, and this will only be the only spoiler free line, I think it has decent lgbt+ representation and that there’s more to unfold. If you’re going to watch exclusively for lgbt+ representation then I don’t think you will be too disappointed but the anime has a ways to go before it’s finished so my opinion can change.

But the most recent episodes and commentary has caused a ripple in viewers beliefs.

Anne and Marie

I literally adored when Marie kissed Anne whilst Carole and Tuesday sat there blushing. Then, Marie was careful to ask if either of them had a boyfriend or girlfriend not assuming C or T’s sexualities at all. This happened on in an early episode so this left me to believe that more casual representation was on the way!

Cybelle

This was where it began to become uncomfortable for me and a few others. I actually couldn’t figure out whether Cybelle was a female, male or left to be ambiguous intentional (I just concluded she was non-binary until they used she/her pronouns). But many people concluded that since it was clear Cybelle was a female with an infatuation (not a crush, an infatuation) on Tuesday people simply labeled her as lesbian. A few are labeling her interactions with Tuesday and Carole as a harmful and negative commonly used trope when involving wlw characters.

Cybelle was being creepy and aggressive towards Tuesday, constantly touching her abruptly and without consent and going as far as biting Tuesday’s neck and leaving a mark. Actions like these feed into the trope that is commonly used in anime/television shows and it actually demeans real lesbian couples. It’s like a scapegoat; saying ‘here’s your rep’ but it’s very, very, very bad rep.

The controversy comes in since there are people defending Cybelle’s actions because she’s a girl, and people are literally calling others ‘homophobic’ because they choose not to ship Cybelle and Tuesday despite their ‘canon interactions’ but they still want Carole and Tuesday to become a couple.

My personal stance is that none of Cybelle’s actions were consensual and I will never want her and Tuesday to become a couple. I think the creators fed into a bad trope (I’m not sure if intentionally or not), and the real only development we got from this was Tuesday learning to stick up for herself. I also think that Cybelle is simply a crazed fan who is not in a sound mental state and that her gender may not necessarily play into this; maybe she was meant to just be an aggressive fan that overstepped boundaries and made people uncomfortable and just happened to be female. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be representation and should not be labeled as such.

But these are just thoughts!

Mermaid Sisters - Galatic Mermaid

I was personally pleased that the Mermaid Sisters blatantly said they weren’t male or female, just like mermaids aren’t fish or human. Non-binary representation is my fucking jam!

But there are worries that this group was used as a comedic affect due to the way the characters were dressed and how they presented themselves, and the fact that they were POC who were interrupted, immediately lost and were shown to be aggressive directly after.

When I first viewed this I was more focused on the fact that they were non-binary, had amazing voices and had sang a song that was clearly not the most appropriate for Mars Brightest. Now I understand that how there were presented can be damaging and as a person of color, I am disappointed but I’m still conflicted. This scene caused people to ‘cancel’ the show and they’re trying to discourage others to not view it but I want to watch until the very end.

Overall I am super happy with the POC representation in the show! Especially since various races and skin tones are show quite frequently.

Dahlia

The same can be said about Dahlia. People feared the a negative trope of transgender females was being displayed though it’s stated that Dahlia is currently male but their sex varies from time to time, on the official website!

The Community/Fandom

Honestly besides the few odd balls who stir the pot and clearly use harsh words when not needed, the fandom is chill. The artworks are sooo cute and a little scarce but you can find Carole and Tuesday content here, on twitter, on YouTube, Deviantart- literally where you would find any other fanbase! Most people are friendly and (NEED) are willing to talk with you! If you’re still hesitant to watch just message someone who constantly tags Carole & Tuesday because I assure, they’re dying to rant to someone about what goes on lol.

Here’s my last little tid bit on whether or not to watch!

You should watch this show because you want to. Don’t do it because someone else keeps saying you have to because it has representation, or because they think Pyotr is hot or whatever. Of course I am the biggest hoe for Carole & Tuesday and if someone wants a new anime to watch I will suggest this one!! But!! Watching a show just because you feel you have to and you have no genuine interests will dull the experience! You should watch and support the show if it makes you laugh, feel love and genuine enjoyment. That’s the point of anime and that is definitely the point of Carole & Tuesday.

I have already seen so many people drop the show because they were forced into it and promised things that weren’t delivered (it’s still early on) and then they bad mouth the anime. If you want to start watching when there’s more hype and a fandom, then wait!! If you’re unsure and want more convincing, message me!! If this doesn’t seem like this anime suits your tastes and, then why did you read this far (kidding)?!!! Regardless, I just want everyone to have a good experience when watching so we can have more good vibes all around.

I would definitely give this anime a shot if you love music, beautiful voices, dancing, poc/lgbt+ rep, suspense and just amazing animation all around, though! It’s has a baby fandom but it’s surely going to grow and I can’t wait to see the outcome of the anime and what becomes of our lovely Carole and Tuesday! <3

I’m also in love with Roddy, just look at him~ | I’m still not super fond of Angela but I am wishing her the best to achieve happiness in the end!

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seenashwrite · 7 years ago

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(1/2)I've completely lost my ability to focus right now, except for hearing Dean saying, "You're awesome, sweetheart," on a loop. I've reread your many treatises on the subject, finally finding the one where someone asked you, "If not sweetheart, then what?" You seemed to believe that he would use "baby" or "sweetiepie" because of his love of his car and pie. I would object to both of these, because I believe that, for him, both Baby and Pie are proper names. (Brother and Angel similarly so, but

Cursing my name? For reals!?

Nah, I kid. I know it’s not hate. And I do apologize, RE: that first part - I obviously was not clear, that’s on me. ‘Cause those ain’t my recommendations. Noooo.

I wanted to convey that it was interesting to me how, putting aside that he only uses “sweetheart” sincerely for Baby & Colt, even if he was using it as an endearment for, um, living things of a twue lurve nature, well….

Dude don’t use it all that often. Not when we compare it to things he no doubt, balls-to-the-wall loves, such as the Impala and pie [and alcohol, but “my lil’ whiskey sour” don’t quite do it for tinglin’ the nethers]. Thus, it got a raised eyebrow from me, how people don’t seem to have the knee-jerk of “sweetiepie” or “babydoll”, derivatives of things he does talk about/refer to adoringly on the reg. Tell me if that’s not making sense, I’ll work on phrasing it better.

Now, having said that - imagining either of those coming out of Dean’s mouth makes me wanna throw up, go eat, throw that up, then mainline Pepto so I can do it all over again til the thought is purged from my person.

All right. Let’s build a profile on Dean’s behavior & verbiage with legitimate love interests, based on what we know from canon, then see if we can’t drill down on a plausible nickname or two.

On an aside, I titled the document containing the draft of what’s below “Endeanments” and I hate myself.

Here’s how this breaks down in my head, so that’s how it’s laid out below. Should the Mrs. or anyone reading this wanna skip ahead, you do you. Scroll til you see the heading.

I. Thing Of The First: What Do We Want & What Do We KnowII. Which Romantic Interests Do We Focus On?III. What Are We Looking For & When We Find It, What Do We Do?IV. What Else Do We Have At Our Disposal To Flesh Out Our Profile Of “Dean In Love"’s Verbiage?V. Thing Of The Second: Nash On Nicknames/Endearments For Unnamed Characters - A.K.A.: Where I’m coming from on this, just so’s y’all can do the whole “Consider the source” thingVI. What Has Worked In The Nashhole Writing RoomVII. Thoughts On The Examples Given In The Ask VIII. Nash’s Three Key Pieces Of Advice For Pulling This Off

And Before We Get Cranking, RE: That Other Post

So here’s the meat & potatoes of what I said when somebody asked my thoughts on what Dean would use as a genuine term of endearment:

I’d bet money that for the actual contenders [both the ones I haven’t yet researched & the nonexistents/potential true loves/soulmates/blahblahblahs], they’d most assuredly be friends first, they will not be a hunter [not a hunter proper, at least, though knowledge of is not a deal-breaker], and any endearment is gonna be something that’s a riff on their name [a la “Sammy” or “Cas”] or related to a specific situation….. she knocks over the sugar bowl, so she’s “Sugar” until enough glares shut that shit down…. things like that.

I. Thing Of The First: What Do We Want & What Do We Know

This whole shebang is based upon the premise that an author gives a shit about accurate characterization of Dean within the context of a legit romantic relationship.

We gotta have a profile in mind regarding the broad strokes of what this chick would be like if our writing of his behavior/the things he says - such as, ta-da! an endearment - is gonna ring true.

All we can know is what’s in canon, and bless the wiki and all their transcripts because no one has to re-watch all the seasons to answer this. #hallelujah

II. Which Romantic Interests Do We Focus On?

The bed-‘em-and-book-it chicks are ruled out, see above, RE: legit love premise.

In the draft of the answer to the other Q that’s referenced in the Q linked above, I have it fleshed out more than I do here - although it’s not completely episode/quote-by-quote sourced - so if y'all wanna know the reasoning behind why I deem these four and only these four ladies of the “legit, Dean was really into them/this had the potential for true love” category, I can share it, but I can’t promise when.

I have no idea if he had an endearment for any or all of these ladies, is my point, y'all feel free to do the deep dive in that respect,

----> ETA later: We did the deep dive. He called Lisa “Honey” when she was dying; unrelated but kind’ve, when he was pretending to be Bela’s husband and she fake-choked on shellfish (also “dying”), he called her “Honey”, too. There ya go.

I stand by these chosen few and the order in which I’ve placed them, the reasons why have to do with character autopsies I do/have done for my big story, ergo would have to be another post or fourteen. Moving on.

Here’s my ranking for “Legit, Dean Totes Felt Something” characters:

4. Jo3. Cassie2. Lisa1. Carmen

All of these ladies, no matter if nothing ever got off the ground [Jo] to the what-might-have-been [Cassie] to the long-term relationship [Lisa] to the dream ideal [Carmen] have some stark, can’t-miss-‘em, key characteristics in common [intelligent, mature, value family, etc.] but I won’t go into that here.

They’re as solid a guide as we’ve got right now, and not just for doing this nickname postulation exercise - I’d also recommend peeps who wanna reeeeeally drill down on an O/C love for Dean to utilize these characters as a jumping off point. R/Is are, of course, going to be [::coughs:: should be] more nebulous in their attributes.

Take home message is that he had a great deal of respect for all of them, so anything that would have to depend on tone because it walks a fine line, you may wanna axe it from the list as an everyday sub for their name.

III. What Are We Looking For & When We Find It, What Do We Do?

You are looking for any nicknames/endearments he assigned to them.

If he did use an endearment with them, do the following:

(1) Which of those 4 is your Dean love interest most like?

(2) Picture Dean calling your character whatever endearment he called them

(3) How’d that work out for you?

And if not, to speculate upon what he would say….. guess what?

(1) Which of those 4 is your Dean love interest most like?

(2) Picture Dean calling them whatever endearment you’ve chosen

(3) How’d that work out for you?

That is your litmus test. Wash, rinse repeat.

IV. What Else Do We Have At Our Disposal To Flesh Out Our Profile Of “Dean In Love"’s Verbiage?

Plenty.

We’ve got the ability to make the profile more robust because of the cooooooooopious amount of evidence on the flip side, what he zeroes in on with the bed-’em-and-book-it type of gal, what his verbiage is like with them, the peeps he doesn’t intend on keeping around for long.

Bonus: that recent ep of what he was like under a love spell. Take what we saw, scale down the intensity, fiddle with it where appropriate - meaning, ‘86 anything that was alike in all the men they charmed, as that isn’t evidence of “Dean In Love” coming to the surface, it’s evidence of the spell’s structure so as to elicit specific behaviors in victims.

Second thing you can look at in terms of nicknaming habits are people for whom he has no romantic inclinations. The easiest cases in point being Sam and Castiel, a.k.a. Sammy and Cas. Off the top of my head, for whatever reason, I recall him calling Gadreel “Zeke” prior to the stolen identity reveal.

So Dean’s a “-y” adder and a name-shortener, consistently with Sam and Castiel, however many times with Ezekiel/Gadreel, and there’s likely more examples, godspeed on that research journey, I ain’t your girl.

I am also 100% - and I know y’all are, too - that he’s a biiiiiiig proponent of situational nicknaming, and while it’s usually snark [think “Batman” for himself, “Harry Potter” for Mick, etc.] it still goes to pattern. I’ve got so many of these in the CASPN decks, it’s unreal, and maaany, possibly most, of them - as noted just now - are TV/movie/music/book-related. [I know this because I’m trying to pull them out as I go to stick them in their own “Deanisms” deck, because if the decks ever go “public” for sale, they can’t have copyrighted content in them]

Again: here we’re looking at a broad stroke in his verbiage, to get a feel of his go-tos, his habits in what he calls others.

V. Thing Of The Second: Nash On Nicknames/Endearments For Unnamed Characters - A.K.A.: Where I’m coming from on this, just so’s y’all can do the whole “Consider the source” thing

I don’t lean into the whole nickname thing. It’s not a purposeful effort, as in, I’m policing myself or when I edit I’m taking them out. It’s just not a reflexive brain-to-keyboard thing for me. I don’t often have characters calling each other by name/nickname/endearment, particularly when it’s just 2 people in a convo, unless it’s a heated convo, a la “DAMMIT NASH!” and “EAT ME, SHITBIRD!”

Longer the fic, trickier this gets. Somebody’s gonna have to address our nameless-faceless protag at some point, and as has been established copiously during my tenure in this fandom, I hope Y/N and her pouty, lip-nibbling, everything-she-does-including-fart-is-done-softly self would die in a fire, ceiling optional, so believe me: I *do* co-sign substitute monikers.

It’s too far to scroll up, here’s what I said about his nicknaming pattern —>

and any endearment is gonna be something that’s a riff on their name [a la “Sammy” or “Cas”] or related to a specific situation….. she knocks over the sugar bowl, so she’s “Sugar” until enough glares shut that shit down…. things like that.

We talked above about him riffing on the person’s name. The situational thing I mentioned - I’ll tell y’all what I did for this, RE: the sticky wicket of when it’s a mini-series/series. [Personally? I think most one-shots can dodge this issue altogether, though certainly YMMV]

VI. What Has Worked In The Nashhole Writing Room

Now, I haaaaated writing the smut thing of mine when I lost a bet, so I plotted it to hell to keep my sanity, and it expanded to 5 g.d. parts. The smut part of it is *riddled* with the tripest tropes that ever troped [part of said bet’s terms], so I’m talking about the story part of it here.

Dean and the protag had a touch-and-go, volatile sitch going on for the bulk of it, ergo chances high due to intense emotions that somebody at some point was gonna have to address each other in at least a tense manner, if not one of anger.

And she was tough as nails, a sniper called in to assist them on a hunt, and she would’ve ended him if he dared call her anything even in the realm of too cutesy-shmoopsy on the reg. It would be in conflict with what I’d built her up to be, bottom line, and likely suck the readers out of the story.

Here’s the dodge I came up with, keeping in mind the situation is she’s a sniper:

“So, we have a decision to make,” Dean said through a partially chewed bite of his burger.

Was he actively trying to be gross? He thankfully swallowed before continuing.

“I’m not in the mood to drive all the way back to Jody’s, then have to share a bed with Sam in her guest room,” Dean began.

Okay. He was talking to me.

“I think the best thing to do is head to the bunker—”

I looked to him, aghast.

“—and we’ve got plenty of room, we can pick up a toothbrush for you when we stop to fill up—”

Did he not notice the big black bulky thing I’d thrown in the back floorboard when they picked me up? I was never not prepared. There was already a toothbrush in my backpack. And a change of clothes.

And a Glock.

“—then we’ll all be fresh daisies, get you home tomorrow. Whaddya say, Snipes?”

Oh god. He’d nicknamed me. Had my letting him win a staring contest actually infused him with enough bravado to try and make friends? Convince me to stay in what Jody had described as essentially a really large basement?

They end up in love - but the sub for her name isn’t lovey-dovey, and it doesn’t have to be, the dynamic between them is vastly more important [more on that later].

In another one in the ol’ draft folder - and it’s not a romantic dynamic, but the nickname dodge happens because she’s unnamed - here’s how that’s gonna work. In an earlier scene, it’s mentioned that Dean was giving her a hard time via the Patsy Cline song “I Fall To Pieces” [spoiler alert: it’s the story based upon THIS thing, you’re smart cookies, you’ll get the reasoning behind it]

And you’d remember. It’s not something you’d forget. I know this because no one else has. Dean still calls me “Cline” - let me rephrase - he bellows it, with glee and snort-laughs, though I suppose there’s worse things to be called. He’s called me those, too, over the years, he doesn’t disappoint. And Sam still narrows his eyes at left my knee, watches my gait for any unevenness or wobbles, and it doesn’t matter what I say, he’ll believe he messed up the articulation til the end of days.

Tangentially-related, in “Build Me Up, Buttercup” - the nutty AU-ish thing that actually started because I was riffing on the sweetheart situation and it mutated - there’s a chunk of conversation between The Woman In Black/The Masked Vampirate/The Apprentice [—-> hint, hint, hint: we *can* refer to folks without using a name/nickname] and Dean on this very topic, of what we call others in lieu of their given names. Mini-spoiler: Even though she’s written 3rd person O/C, and even though she does end up as someone’s love interest, you’re never gonna know her name.

Not spoilers, because these stories are already “out there”, you also never learned/will never learn the names of the chicks in Hello, I’m Gone; The Lore You Know; It; The Once Demon Barber From Robintree; A Delicate Desiccation; The Bell-Watcher’s Daughter; A Fluff By Any Other Name; and who friggin’ knows what-all in the stack of quickies I’ve accumulated.

VII. Thoughts On The Examples Given In The Ask

Back to what you said….. and shit, Imma c/p it here, if anybody’s made it this damn far, I won’t ask they scroll up:

All right, in no particular order, just as things hit me…..

It’s about 7:30 a.m. here in Nashland, this is rotten and off the top of my head, but I could totes picture seeing pumpkin in a Halloween fluff, like - something happens with a pumpkin, it’s dropped or she slices open her hand trying to carve it, is like “[something something] and don’t start calling me pumpkin” and he’s like “Nah…. Punk.” ‘Cause, again - he loves a situational riff & he’s a shortener.

Agreed on princess, I co-sign your gut, he’d say it sneery/as a cut-down on someone who’s afraid to dig in, get a little dirt in the skirt on a hunt or something.

Darlin’ is tricky, because Dean’s not Southern/doesn’t have a drawl unless a touch of Jensen slips out…. and honestly, he’s not got much of an accent from what I’ve heard, though remember that’s going through a Dixieland filter, so consider the source. Might I offer a sub for it? See how “doll” works.

Well, honey’s hitting closer to sounding like him. I’d go “hon”, though, RE: being a shortener. “Hey, hon?” is more casual than “Honey”, and “Honey” also might run the risk of popping a reader back to… [forgive the Rocket inclusion]:

Full quote is “Honey, there ain’t no other men like me.”, but y’all knew that. It’s not on the OH HELL NO list for me, Honey/Hon’s definitely a contender.

But speaking of pinging my “OH HELL NO” radar -

[gasps] Oh, Whoozies…. oh my Whatsis…. sugarplum?

[shakes head vehemently]

* UNLESS* Y/N is a violet-hued fairy in ballet slippers, and they are battling a baby-chomping sentient Nutcracker. But even then, he’d call her ‘Plums.

Sweetie… hmmmm….. you know what might be worth a go? “Sweets”. I could hear “Hey, Sweets” coming out of his mouth. If you could figure a way to make it a lesser of two evils, that’s even better, like…. he pats her on the ass and calls her “sweetcheeks” and she’s all “Oh, but no”, so he downshifts to “sweets”.

“Puddin’“….. erm….. My knee-jerk is no. If it were suuuuper situational, perhaps. I’m drawing a blank on what the situation would be, though, because my mind immediately pops to that episode at the spa…. I just….

I’m hearing it in my mind as if somebody was writing a story where it’s basically a re-hash of that episode - Oh but (tee-hee) this time Y/N got the roofied pudding, and now Dean’s gonna drive her nuts never letting her forget it! Tune in for next week’s episode of Supernatural, guest starring Ordinary McTypical-Chick as Puddin’! [/announcer voice] [cue laugh track], and then I’m all……

Round up on the “Give ‘Er A Try” list:

Honey —> sure why not; “hon” may be better

Sweetie —> ehhhh, probably situational; “sweets” could be worth a try

Pumpkin —-> sooooo situational; and if go there, would 100% roll it into “punk”

Darlin’ —> ehhhh; “doll” suggested sub

….and wasn’t mentioned, but unless it works your personal nerves, from my POV, “babe” doesn’t pull me out of the story if it sneaks into Dean’s dialogue, a la “Hey, babe? You already toss some shells into the trunk?”

Nash’s Three Key Pieces Of Advice For Pulling This Off

1. Who is this person on the receiving end of the nickname - know this, and it’ll narrow down your choices;

2. Do it like Dean: if they have a name, go “-y” or shorten it, or take a situation/circumstance and spin it;

and, possibly the most important -

3. Limit, limit, limit

Make your own parameters for amount of times this is happening in a given piece. I’m just throwing #s - like, = 500 = 0, 501 - 1K = 1, 1.1K - 2.5K = 2, something like that. Take away the pressure of it by making “rules” and you’re free to get your brain back to the story.

Because here it is, y’all - and I’ve said this in other posts - the best thing you can do for yourself or for those you beta is to stop after every scene or paragraph or page or “x” amount of words, whatever your pref is, and ask yourself about what you’ve just read/written:

Who cares? - A.K.A.: Is ____ advancing the plot/the interpersonal dynamics, or not?

Regarding non-nickname stuff: Does it matter that we know about her morning routine? That she had oatmeal because she was out of bagels? The make and model of her car? Her co-workers’ names? Her co-workers at all? What her cat is like? What her cat is named? Her cat at all?

And the same applies here: Does an endearment matter in this particular sentence/moment? I care about the relationships between/amongst the characters, how well they’re grooving with each other [or not], how that weaves together, how it’s integral to the plot, how it impacts the action/the task, how it plays into the climax and resolution [or lack thereof].

Is it ideal to have things coming out of the mouths of the characters we all know ring true? Absolutely. And that’s the other “who cares” here: BIG cares if things that are “un-Dean” creep in. As the adage goes: “When in doubt, don’t”.

So, when stuck on this element, figure out something else to do with the sentence…. and I’d start with 86′ing the nickname. Bet you money most of the time, the message of the sentence will read exactly the same.

You got this.

Thanks for the Q, hope I helped in some fashion and that the curses either wane, or perhaps reach new, interesting heights and volumes, depending on the level of said helpfulness.

#Dear Nash #mrswhozeewhatsis #Let me call you sweetheart #Dean's Dream Gal #and what's in a name #gotta know who they are #and what they're about #and what his normal #patterns are in general #you got this #Nash Advises #Writing Tips #Queueby Dooby Doo #Dad's on a blog post and #he hasn't been queued in a few days #ok fine #Endeanments #why not

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